Earlier this year, I wrote about the ongoing saga that is the Florida property insurance legislative reform efforts in a blog post titled: Florida Insurers Continued Use of “Fraud” as a Red Herring in Their Legislative Agenda.
Continue Reading Florida’s New Property Insurance Reform Tackles Fraud, But Only One Side
For some reason, one of my favorite non-insurance-related classes in law school was none other than constitutional law. Although the field of constitutional law is one that I enjoy reading and learning about, it is not often that first-party property insurance overlaps with constitutional law issues.
Continue Reading Citizens Property Insurance Immunity from Bad Faith Insurance Violations and the State Action Doctrine
For those who follow the news regarding Florida’s insurance market, the people of the Sunshine State are being warned as property insurance premiums are steadily increasing. To fix what is being labeled as a “broken” system, the Florida Senate continues to push for property insurance reform with the latest proposed bill, SB 1728, which is designed to allow insurers to sell policies that only pay either the depreciated value of the roof or its actual cash value. What this means is that while Florida policyholders might get the semblance of a slight premium decrease, they conversely will be the ones who will be forced to pay most, if not the entire, cost of a new roof in the event of a loss outside of a named hurricane.
Continue Reading Florida Insurers Continued Use of “Fraud” as a Red Herring in Their Legislative Agenda
Property insurance policies with language that gives insurers the power to invoke their “Right to Repair” is a trend that is, unfortunately, becoming more and more common. While the provision in these policies does sound like a good idea in theory, the way insurers utilize them is anything but as intended.
Continue Reading Right to Repair: The Intersection of the Managed Repair Program and the Faulty Workmanship Exclusion
If you are a frequent reader of Property Insurance Coverage Law Blog, you know that many of our blog posts make a very important recommendation to all policyholders: read the full policy. If you happened to miss this lesson, otherwise championed by insurance professional Bill Wilson as one of the “10 Commandments of Policy Interpretation,” you can read more in When Words Collide: Policy Interpretation Doctrines and the 10 Commandments. Understand Your Insurance Policy Better—RTFP!
Continue Reading Unfair Claims Practices May Continue Through Disbursement of the Settlement Check: The Hidden Accord and Satisfaction Language
With every coverage afforded under a property insurance policy, there comes a laundry list of conditions that attach for the policyholder to be able to recover. These are usually called something along the lines of “Post Loss Obligations” or “Duties After Loss.”
Continue Reading Failure to Comply with Post-Loss Obligations: Affidavits by Themselves May Not be Enough to Win Summary Judgment Under Florida Rule 1.510
For those who may own a mobile or manufactured home, purchasing insurance for your home is a necessary path to ensuring that your property is protected in the event of a loss. Just to clarify, whether such property is classified as a “mobile home” or “manufactured home” is insignificant for purposes of this blog post as the terms are relatively synonymous. The term “mobile home” is the more traditional classification, whereas the term “manufactured home” was born after new construction industry safety standards were mandated in 1976.1
Continue Reading The Auto-Treatment of Mobile Home Insurance Policies and their Ramifications: Do Not Let Your Insurance Company Roll Away with Both Your Claim and Home
In a previous blogpost, The Applicability of the Protective Safeguard Provision, and Common Situations that Would Effectively Render the Provision Meaningless, I discussed a commonly inserted condition in property insurance policies: the protective safeguard provision.
Continue Reading Protective Safeguard Provisions Part II: Control, Maintenance and the Idea of Due Diligence
When property insurance policies are issued, insurers may add in provisions which seek to lessen the risk of loss. One of the common types of conditions included in a policy is what is called a protective safeguard provision.
Continue Reading The Applicability of the Protective Safeguard Provision, and Common Situations that Would Effectively Render the Provision Meaningless
Virtually every property insurance policy has a specific section regarding the post-loss obligations of the insured. Whether it be expressly stated in its own policy provision or implied from the wording of other post-loss obligation provisions, it is almost universally agreed that an insured has a duty to mitigate their damages after a loss.
Continue Reading Conflicting Policy Provisions Regarding the Duty to Mitigate in Business Interruption Claims