Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection has released the results of its 2019 Survey of Travel Insurance. The results show that more and more people intend to purchase travel insurance in the upcoming year than in previous years. With the holiday season quickly approaching and children off of school that means holiday travel for many. Let’s look at what “travel insurance” really is and what should a travel consider when purchasing.
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In 2017 and 2018, California experienced devastating wildfires, during which thousands of structures, homes, and businesses were destroyed. California insurers scrambled to adjust the thousands of claims but it was quickly recognized that they were not prepared to timely handle losses due to a large-scale natural disaster. The California legislature responded, enacting several amendments to the law extending the time policyholders had to collect additional living expenses and replacement costs.
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While working on and researching for answers to questions posed by Professor Feinman regarding the growing insurance coverage gaps crisis, I came across a very pointed article published about how modern insurance company claims practices are destroying the construction restoration industry.
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Insurance estimators, appraisers, and adjusters of roofing claims should read the attached partial specifications of a commercial roofing project. There has been some discussion of what a “reasonable” cost should be, but I think most would require that the scope of a commercial roofing job involving insurance be one that is going to result in a “quality” job. So, how do you determine what a quality commercial roofing job would be? I suggest you would look at specifications that the construction industry has come up with to prevent non-quality work from occurring.
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Some of the more interesting discussions about property insurance losses which I have read lately come from Steve Patrick’s “Level The Playing Field” Facebook Group. Recently, Leland Coontz wrote the following:
I’ve been triggered again. Someone mentioned on Facebook that ‘The insured is not allowed to profit from their loss.’ Show me your law license and I might respect your wrong opinion. But it would still be wrong.
His post triggered over 130 comments with very different opinions.
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It is not uncommon in a condominium complex for a unit to be damaged due to a failure in a neighboring unit. With units tightly packed together, water can quickly flow from one unit to another, causing damage along the way. Determining the cause of damage is often the first step in evaluating an insurance claim. If evidence relating to the cause of the damage, such as maintenance records or a breached window or door, is owned and controlled by a third-party, when is there a duty imposed on the third-party to preserve the potential evidence?
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The Villas at Winding Ridge v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company1 opinion is a good reminder to appraisers that they need to timely raise any issues related to the appraisal, or risk having those issues waived.
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Almost every federal court requires parties to mediate their case before trial. The purpose of mediation is to place all interested parties in the same room to determine whether an amicable resolution of the case is possible.
A mediator is an individual who works with the parties to highlight strengths and weaknesses of the parties’
After a fire loss you would expect your insurance company to complete a full and fair adjustment of the damages, right? So did the Normans, however, as admitted by a corporate representative of State Farm, “had State Farm not received additional information [from an industrial hygienist], the payments made in July 2012 would have been the settlement of the Normans’ claim” stemming from smoke and soot damage to their home as a result of the infamous Waldo Canyon fire of 2012 in Colorado.1 Eventually State Farm did pay a lot more in covered damages in May of 2013.
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I want to pass along a Thanksgiving Wish sent today by Angel Rivera, an attorney in our San Juan, Puerto Rico office, to everyone in the firm:
To all of my fellow attorneys at MLG Puerto Rico, and at MLG everywhere, and to all the excellent assistants at MLG Puerto Rico, whom I consider friends,