Commercial insurance policies may provide private flood coverage. These are not common, but policies should be fully read, and flood coverage is usually found in an endorsement or a Difference in Conditions policy. One question is, “how much flood coverage is available?” A recent case found that the endorsement did not provide a dollar limit to the business income and extra expense claim.1
Continue Reading No Business Income and Extra Expense Coverage Limit to Flood Endorsement
One of the lessons from the treble damage case noted in yesterday’s blog, Treble Damages for Insurance Company Misconduct in North Carolina and Collapse Coverage Confirmed, is that denial letters from insurance companies should be accurate. They should not be quoting irrelevant policy language. Denial letters should only cite the policy language the insurer is relying upon to deny a claim. By law in most states, the letter should accurately state facts and the applicable policy language for denial.
Continue Reading Overbroad Denial Letters Are Deceptive and Not in Good Faith
An insurance policy is a contract. In disputes involving contracts, it is nearly always the terms and conditions of the contract that will govern. Contracts set out the rights and obligations of the parties involved. Therefore, it is essential to read all the provisions of the contract in their entirety.
Continue Reading Reading Your Full Policy, a Cautionary Tale
Cast iron pipe systems are actively corroding across the country. Florida commercial and residential properties are even more susceptible to corrosion due to Florida’s salt and moisture-rich environment. Unfortunately, insurance companies often try to deny pipe damage claims based on carefully worded exclusions such as “wear and tear” or claiming the pipes have reached the natural end of their lifespan. Even in accepted claims, insurance companies will often lowball a policyholder, leaving them with costly excess repair fees that they are unprepared to take.
Continue Reading Limited Water Damage Endorsement Will Not Limit the Liability for the “Tear Out” Costs
For a crash course in right to repair issues, one need only perform a brief search of cases involving People’s Trust Insurance Company (“People’s Trust”). When it comes to policies issued by People’s Trust, there seems to be only one thing that people can trust—a Preferred Contractor Endorsement will be included in exchange for a “premium discount.” For various reasons, the Preferred Contractor Endorsement issued by People’s Trust has been labeled a “trap for many homeowners” (see Beaujeaux de Lapouyade’s blog post, Declaratory Judgment Action May Be Forthcoming If An Insurer Invokes Its Right To Repair). In fact, I challenge Florida homeowners to ask their insurance agent to procure a People’s Trust policy that does not have the Preferred Contractor Endorsement—do not be surprised if your agent cannot find such a policy.
Continue Reading Right to Repair: How People’s Trust Insurance Company’s Preferred Contractor Endorsement Leaves Policyholders Over a Barrel
Many people think the declarations page and subsequent coverage and exclusion sections make up the important part of an insurance policy. However, add-on forms known as “endorsements” or “riders” may be just as important as they have the ability to significantly change the policy, depending on their language. For example, an endorsement to an insurance contract can add, remove, or change the coverage in the policy. While these pages often come at the end of the contract, they should be read in conjunction with the declarations page and the entirety of the policy.
Continue Reading Reading the Fine Print of Add-On Forms in Policies – Catastrophe Area Notice Limitations and More
The title to this post would almost certainly be answered “no” by any insurance regulator or consumer advocate. But Liberty Mutual Insurance Company argues this is exactly what it can do with no consequence because the fraudulent and deceptive statements in the declarations should have been found by the policyholder reading the fine print in the policy endorsement—which is anything other than an enhanced product.
Continue Reading Can Insurance Companies Send Declaration Pages Which Indicate Enhanced Coverage Yet Deliver Diminished Coverage In The Fine Print In The Back of Endorsements?
Business owners and owners of commercial property should not buy Farmers Insurance. Virtually every insurance company in the United States considers the entire cost of restoration right away when making payments, including at actual cash value—except Farmers Insurance. Farmers Insurance has declared war on its own customers and independent restoration contractors.
Continue Reading Farmers Insurance Sells Substandard Commercial Policy and Business Owners Should Not Purchase Farmers Insurance
Chip Merlin frequently stresses the importance of reading the whole insurance policy when determining whether there is coverage for the relevant property damage. The failure to do so was highlighted in a recent case,1 where a Pennsylvania federal court stated it could not ignore the specific terms of an insurance policy merely because the
We see many commercial insurance claims denied because the insured did not maintain a particular “protective safeguard” required by the policy. For example, a policy may require burglar alarms, and exclude coverage for theft if alarms are not working at the time of a loss. Or, a policy may require fire sprinklers, and exclude coverage for fire loss if the property does not have any. Some provisions may even allow the insurer to deny coverage if the insured failed to have a contract in place for regular service of the protective safeguard, something often seen for Ansul systems in restaurants. Courts across the country have almost uniformly upheld the validity of these endorsements.1
Continue Reading Protective Safeguards Endorsements: Does Your Policy Have One?