I have CCW Safe; also highly recommend USCCA. I've talked with one of their reps in person and I'm impressed. So impressed I might just subscribe to both. WRT value I can't say because I've never used the service and hope to heaven I never have to. I suppose you could build a spreadsheet with fee versus amounts of coverages as a decision matrix. Types of coverages offered hard to compare, though, because they're not exactly the same. Is why I'm thinking of both.
(edited to correct name of my legal defense coverage)
TLDR (most important part is
in bold):
1. You do absolutely HAVE to have access to the money to hire lawyers, if you are going to carry a gun. (My opinion)
If you can’t hire a lawyer, prosecutors will see you as an easy target. This makes them more likely to charge you, more likely to file harsh charges, and less likely to try and work something out.
Whether it’s a concealed carry plan, a tupperware full of cash buried next to the BBQ pit, or a middle-class extended family that can fundraise, you need that money ready to go, fast.
2. You will be spending thousands of dollars over a lifetime of paying for a plan, so
it is very worth it to pay a criminal defense lawyer 500-1000 to review your stack of plans and tell you which one, if any, will do you some good.
Long version:
To summarize my experience, as someone getting paid by insurance companies to investigate criminal and civil defense cases:
Homeowner policies are excellent, as far as they go. My experience has been that the insurance companies essentially write blank checks for the defense. It is in the insurance company’s financial interest to get you the best defense possible.
The concealed carry plans (they’re not real insurance) that I have looked at have had major problems that meant the plans were of limited value. Possibly of no value.
Still, there may be an excellent plan out there; I don’t know. Note that it is
not in a plan’s financial interest to get you the best defense possible; it is in their interest to spend as little money on you as possible.
Some
deal-breakers I have seen:
The plan picks your lawyer.
The plan reimburses you down the road.
The plan reviews your case and reserves the right to refuse to pay if, in their sole opinion, you have some measure of guilt.
The plan pays you less than, say, $200K + 50K expenses to defend your criminal case (trying a murder case generally costs from 100k to 1M in a big city; maybe half that in a small town).
There are many other problems you will find in the plans, but these are the ones that had me thinking, “Why would anyone pay for this plan?”
