Right to Bear Insurance Review [2023]: Coverage Issues Detailed

If you’ve heard of Right to Bear Insurance and you’re looking to see if they’re the right concealed carry insurance for you (more accurately called self defense liability insurance), we’ve got some good news: we’re going review Right to Bear, explain their coverage options, and give you some pros and cons to help you make an informed decision.

In this Right to Bear CCW Insurance review, I’ll take a deep dive into their policy and I’ll let you know what you can expect and whether or not I think Right to Bear is worth it for you and your family.

Although I am a firearms attorney, I’m not YOUR attorney – this is not legal advice and only you can decide whether self defense insurance is right for your situation (and which provider to choose). This stuff is a bit more complicated than your standard car insurance, homeowners insurance, or life insurance.

Before we begin, I want to let you know that some of the links below are affiliate links that can help us keep our ammo budget going but they will NOT affect your price nor do they affect our advice about the insurance policy.

Self defense liability insurance (CCW Insurance).

In this Right to Bear Insurance review we’re going to cover:

In the next couple of sections I’m going to cover the features, pricing, and what we do and don’t like about what Right to Bear offers. However, if you’d like to know how I rank Right to Bear against other gun liability insurance providers, check out our Best Concealed Carry Insurance Comparison.

What is Right to Bear Insurance?

Right to Bear, like other concealed carry insurance providers, isn’t technically “insurance.” Instead, these “ccw insurance companies” provide legal support for self-defense scenarios.

Right to Bear has a strong backing in the firearms industry as they are a related business to Palmetto State Armory. We’ve had a few conversations with them so far and are happy to report that they are great to deal with and they are striving to improve every day. It honestly makes me feel bad to write a non-positive review of them because I like them. However, you come to Gun University for the truth and not just marketing fluff – so that’s what you’re getting.

Is self defense liability support needed?

Unfortunately, the fight can be even more difficult AFTER you’ve used your firearm in self defense. The government may try to prosecute you for a crime or the person you shot, or their relatives, can sue you in court for damages.

As you can imagine, dealing with legal fees, lawyers, and more can be VERY expensive – especially if you lose and are ordered by the court to pay someone that sued you. Spending a few hundred thousand dollars, or more, is not uncommon just to get a defense started in a criminal case.

I’m known for telling my clients that “it’s often better to avoid a fight than it is to win a fight.” That’s because “winning” can be VERY expensive when legal costs are involved.

Right to Bear insurance exists to help cover the costs associated with your legal defense in both criminal and civil cases.

How Much Does Right to Bear Coverage Cost?

Right to Bear self defense coverage used to have different tiers, however, they have recently changed their program to have one level of coverage that costs $125 per year (or $11 per month).

* Maximum amount limited to prior 6 months revenue from all members

What Does Right to Bear Cover?

Before we get into what RTB covers, it’s likely valuable to explore some broad areas of coverage common among the major self defense insurance providers.

After all, you’re a gun owner looking to exercise your second amendment rights and you want to be covered in case you need to use your firearm in self defense to protect yourself and your loved ones from violence. 

As gun owners, gun ownership is a right we enjoy in the United States but it does come with responsibilities and requires a focus on gun safety. 

First each of them charges a different amount and offers a different max dollar amount of coverage. This can be misleading as it is often the first and only thing someone looks at when they’re purchasing coverage: dollar amount of max coverage versus the dollar mount of monthly cost.

Second, and perhaps most important, they don’t cover the same things nor for the same amounts. This is EXTREMELY important as a lot of money that can only be used in certain areas or doesn’t even apply to you because of a loop-hole is not always wise.

Here’s the problem: It can be very tough to wade through all the differences by reading the actual legal paperwork and policies but only you can decide which features are most important for you.

Here’s my advice: if you decide to get coverage, learn about what each company actually covers and then choose the one that you can afford and gives you the best protection for what’s important to you.

Also, I have a set of 3 baseline rules that I feel strongly about and I think that you should make sure your chosen ccw insurance has these three things (at a minimum):

1. Money up front
2. Ability to choose your own lawyer
3. Daily “per diem” payment while in trial

I’ll address these must-have ccw insurance features along with some of the other features to see how Right to Bear “stacks up” so you can decide if they’re right for you.

Criminal Defense Protection: Even if you think, and your friends all agree, that your defensive gun use was justified, you might still be prosecuted! Your criminal defense can be very expensive (it’s not unreasonable for things to START at $200,000) and although RTB used to specifically cap their coverage, they now offer “unlimited” legal coverage. “Unlimited” is in quotes because it can only be spent with their attorneys (more on this below), it doesn’t apply in some circumstances, and their current policy specifically limits the dollar amount of coverage that they’ll pay for you to however much RTB received in payments from all members for the preceding 6 months.

Civil Defense & Liability coverage: Previously, Right to Bear used to cap coverage depending on which tier a member was a part of and the amount needed to be shared between criminal and civil matters – however, the current RTB policy does not make a distinction between criminal or civil suits and will cover them each equally.

Up Front Money: If you need money for your legal defense, you need it up front. Reimbursement is nice, but if you can cover a few hundred thousand dollars on your own in case of a self defense gun use, perhaps insurance is not right for you?  Right to Bear pays legal fees directly.

Bail: If you elect to pay an extra $35 per year (or $4 per month), you qualify for bail bond coverage up to $100,000 (with a max payment of $10,000). An important note here is that RTB will not pay “up to” $10,000 (for a $100,000 bond) and allow you to cover the rest. Their current policy states that this extra bail bond coverage only applies if it covers your entire bond. Therefore, if your bond is $125,000, for example, then RTB will not cover any of that amount.

Per Diem: While you’re in court for trial, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to work. After weeks or months, this can be a serious strain on your finances in addition to defense costs. This is one of our 3 required features and used to be covered by RTB for an extra fee, however, their current policy has no provision for any per diem coverage.

Appeal Coverage: Under RTB’s previous policy, there was no coverage for appeals. This was a major concern for me. Our original review covered this and we included that we knew that they were working to improve their policy and had high hopes. For some good news to share, their current policy has been updated and it now includes coverage for appeals – this is wonderful and what we were hoping for.

What’s Not Included With Right to Bear:

No Sales in NY, NJ, WA: Just recently the local governments for these three states banned the sales of “CCW insurance” programs. This doesn’t mean that your CCW insurance won’t work if you’re visiting there, it just means you can’t buy it if you live here. However, this is a limitation for all CCW insurance services right now.

Per Diem Coverage: As mentioned above, there is no longer any per diem (daily amount while in trial to offset lost wages) coverage offered.

Choosing Your Own Attorney: Even though there are some other issues that I’m going to cover below, this is a major reason why I can’t recommend Right to Bear CCW Insurance and is a red flag for us: the inability to choose your own attorney.

I don’t care about how much money you have from an insurance company and which areas of your defense are covered if you don’t have any say in choosing your actual lawyer. A smaller amount of money for a great lawyer is WAY better than unlimited money thrown at a bad lawyer. Also, I’m fundamentally against any system that limits your freedom of choice. (more on this below)

Firearm Replacement: Although it was previously covered, and their website claims that they’ll cover the cost of a firearm if it is taken after a self defense incident, their current policy does not include firearm replacement.

Right to Bear vs Other CCW Insurance:

It is almost impossible for me to say which ccw insurance is “best” overall because everyone’s situation, budget, and risk tolerance is unique. However, I can say that I do not currently recommend Right to Bear for your self defense legal protection.

I purchased CCW Safe for myself but I encourage you to look to take a good look at these companies to see which is best for you and your needs.

** Maximum amount limited to prior 6 months revenue from all members

Right to Bear Review – Our Take

This brings us no joy: we can not recommend Right to Bear insurance.

There are other better options available in our Best CCW Insurance Guide.

So, why can we not recommend Right to Bear?

For any concealed carry insurance option, we strongly recommend looking for three basic ccw insurance requirements:

1. The ability to choose your own attorney,
2. Money up-front, and
3. A daily allowance to help offset time off work

Right to Bear only offers 1 of these three basic “must-haves” – money up-front.

Unfortunately, without being able to choose your own attorney and with no per diem coverage, it doesn’t not pass our basic test.

However, upon reading the actual policy from Right to Bear I have more concerns.

One of the biggest concerns I used to have with their coverage (and which I discussed in the previous review) was the requirement that you had to pay back everything if you lost your case at the trial level and there was no option for coverage of an appeal. I mentioned above that they made some updates to their policy that we have been waiting for and are very happy with these changes – the current policy no longer has the provision that requires you pay back RTB if you lose and they now include appeal coverage. We hope that our highlighting these issues from the previous policy helped to influence these great changes.

Despite the good changes, there still exists a big concern for me: You may not choose your own attorney. Pointing this out in our earlier review caused some issues – we received many comments challenging this claim because Right To Bear claims the opposite on their website (and in some correspondence). Because of this confusion, I’m going to dive a little deeper into this topic.

Although the language has changed in their current policy, the actual legal policy that covers what they offer and which lays out the guidlines of your coverage specifically states that you must use one of their attorneys and if you use your own attorney, then they will not cover your legal fees.

Under Section VII(C) of the most recent policy (as of this review), Right to Bear states:

“Each Associate shall have the right to select the Contracted Lawyer of his or her choice when legal services are needed out of the Contracted Lawyers made available by the Association under this Agreement. In addition, any Associate shall have the right at any time to retain counsel of his or her choice authorized to practice in the Applicable State other than a Contracted Lawyer made available under this Agreement, provided that in such case such Associate shall be responsible for all fees, costs and expenses of such counsel and shall receive no reimbursement for such from the Association under this Agreement.” (emphasis added)

Let’s break this down to help understand what it means.

Right to Bear, in “Section III – Services Included” of their policy specifically provides legal coverage only through “Contracted lawyers.” They define “Contracted Lawyers” in Section I(E) as attorneys that are contracted with RTB to provide legal services. Effectively, this means that RTB has pre-selected lawyers and will only provide coverage through (and payment to) these “Contracted Lawyers.”

So, as long as you use one of their lawyers, you’re covered. However, if you choose your own lawyer, you’re not covered.

The quoted section of their policy above from Section VII(C) makes it clear that you do, in fact, have the right to choose your own lawyer. However, if you do, you (the “Associate”) are “responsible for all fees, costs and expenses of” your lawyer and they won’t reimburse you.

So, even though their website says that you can choose your own lawyer, you won’t receive coverage nor reimbursement for using your own lawyer.

We’ve seen correspondence from Right to Bear which claims that you can use your own lawyer as long as the lawyer is “vetted through their panel of attorneys,” however, there is no such allowance nor provision for this in the policy.

Second, there are some very odd limitations in their coverage. Previously, if you were on property owned by a religious institution or if your firearm is “modified” from the factory configuration, then you wouldn’t have been covered. Thankfully, these limitations no longer exist and we’re including these in some of the good changes we’ve seen in the newest policy.

However, there remain some problematic limitations.

Specifically, in Section VI(F)(1), the following people will not be covered:

• anyone who is in the business of selling, dealing, transferring, or making firearms (Federal Firearm Licensees/FFL dealers or manufacturers),
• anyone in the business of selling firearm parts or accessories, or
• anyone in the business of selling ammunition

The same Section, in VII(E)(4), says that you will not be covered if the self defense incident is against “…current or former family members, household members, domestic partnerships, romantic relationships…”

This means that if you have a self defense incident against an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, for example, then you aren’t covered.

Again, we’ve spoken and emailed with Right to Bear and addressed our concerns in both their previous policy and coverage and their current policy and coverage. So far, they’ve been receptive and as I’ve detailed above, some good changes have been made. They have truly seemed interested in making their coverage on par with the best available. However, despite the changes, some issues still exist.

As it stands now, we can not recommend you use Right to Bear for your CCW Insurance and encourage you to check out our Best CCW Insurance list to make a decision on which one is right for you.

Right to Bear Pros and Cons

Cost	One of the lowest cost options available	A+
Coverage	The legal defense dollar amounts is now “unlimited” but is only paid based on 6 months of revenue	B+
Features	Some nice features, but it is missing 2 of our required 3 features and things like per diem	F
Value	Low cost, but not near as many features or coverage as other options	D+

Our Grade

C-

Reviewed by Ryan Cleckner

Reader’s Grade

D-

Based on 3 Reviews

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