(Note: This Guest Blog is by Javier Delgado, an attorney with Merlin Law Group in the Houston, Texas, office. This is the eighth in a series he and fellow attorney Tina Nicholson will be writing on Texas property insurance issues).

Often times, an insurance adjuster fails to properly investigate the damages to the insured risk and does not properly evaluate the obvious insurance exclusions for many reasons. After suffering a loss, the insured a business owner is making decisions to get the business up and running as soon as possible, and many of those decisions are based upon the representations of the adjuster, or the lack of information given by the adjuster. The business decisions of whether to move to new location, lease more of the building to offset the additional costs or debt, replace or repair the improvements and betterments installed by a tenant, hire security to protect the premises, purchase a new policy that will cover theft and vandalism on a vacant building thought to be insured under the existing policy, etc., have a significant impact on the amount of money the insured will pay out of pocket and may never recover under the policy.…

Continue Reading Waiver and Estoppel – Insurance Companies Must Assert Their Applicable Exclusion or Limitation When the Insured Makes the Claim