One practice that has plagued the insurance industry in recent years has been contractors soliciting homeowners to make insurance claims after a hailstorm, for example, and then obtaining an assignment of rights to the claim and pursuing litigation against the insurer. The Iowa Supreme Court recently ruled that a contractor’s attempt to obtain such an … Continue Reading
A new law represents a major step forward to remedy Florida’s assignment of benefits (“AOB”) crisis, which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has described as a “racket” in recent years. On Thursday May 23, 2019, Governor DeSantis signed House Bill 7065, which addresses the abuse of post-loss AOBs for residential and commercial property insurance claims, by … Continue Reading
A New York trial court recently granted an insurer’s motion for summary judgment pursuant to the “Residence Premises Condition” contained in a homeowner’s insurance policy. Aschmoneit v. Adirondack Insurance Exchange, 2018 N.Y. LEXIS 3418 (August 7, 2018), The court found that the insured did not reside at the home despite an affidavit asserting that he … Continue Reading
A typical claim for a homeowner will involve some type of damage to the property, which, in turn, prompts the insurer to perform an inspection of the insured property, so as to assess the cause and extent of the alleged damage. Depending on the nature of the claim, insurers may be able to have a … Continue Reading
As we have written about before on this blog, the water damage caused by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 gave rise to important questions concerning the applicability of so-called “anti-concurrent causation” clauses. Such was the case in the recently-decided matter of Carevel, LLC v. Aspen American Ins. Co., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157919 (D.N.J. Nov. … Continue Reading
Courts across the country (and particularly since Super Storm Sandy in 2012) have consistently held that, in litigation involving a dispute concerning the investigation, adjustment, or payment of a flood claim under the Standard Flood Insurance Policy, policy holders are limited to breach of contract causes of action against their Write-Your-Own insurance carriers. Those courts … Continue Reading
Drone mapping provides insurance companies with an easy, fast and accurate method of documenting a scene and preserving key details while also letting the process of clean-up and reconstruction begin as quickly as possible. Recently, Dronotec, a start-up company specializing in drone inspection for insurance companies conducted a case study to determine just how much … Continue Reading
Back in March, our Data Privacy + Security Insider blog reported an increase in the use of commercial drones by State Departments of Transportation across the country. Now, insurance companies are also getting in the game. Using drones for underwriting, determining property values and conditions for policy issuance, inspections and risk evaluations may be more economical, may … Continue Reading
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently explained that under Florida law a policyholder who fails to provide prompt notice of a claim faces an uphill battle defeating the resulting rebuttable presumption of prejudice to the insurer. The court also affirmed an award of attorneys’ fees to the insurer under Florida’s offer of judgment statute. … Continue Reading
In May 2014, Nevada became the latest state to interpret the breadth and applicability of the pollution exclusion contained within a third-party general liability policy. Although many states have considered this question, those courts have reached diametrically opposite conclusions, leading to confusion and uncertainly, particularly with respect to states that have yet to address the … Continue Reading
Following Superstorm Sandy, many state insurance departments along the East Coast issued bulletins indicating that insurance companies should not impose hurricane deductibles on homeowners, mainly because the classification of Sandy shifted from a hurricane to a post-tropical storm as it traveled the East Coast. The bulletins expressly refer to homeowners policies and do not reference … Continue Reading
In a putative class action pending Arkansas federal court, a question of law was certified to the Arkansas Supreme Court regarding whether labor may be depreciated on property insurance claims, if the insurance policy does not define the term “actual cash value” (see my May 8, 2013 blog post on the federal court’s certification of … Continue Reading
