Out With a Bang: Current State of Play on Coverage for COVID-Related Losses
The Calm Before and After the Storm: How to Maximize Insurance Recovery for Catastrophic Weather Events
Protect Your Construction Project: Top 10 Insurance Provisions to Know
Filing Insurance Claims After the Texas Winter Storm
Subro Sense - The ABC's of RCV and ACV
K&L Gates Triage: Emergency Preparedness and Response in Long Term Care - Part II
What Money Damages Are Available In A Personal Injury Claim?
After State Farm rate hike, legislators are pressured to provide relief. Here’s what could be on the table. - “Gov. JB Pritzker wasted no time in calling on state legislators to do something about rising insurance rates...more
Property Insurance/Replacement Cost - Homeowners Did Not Substantially Meet Policy’s Condition Precedent to Recover Replacement Cost Value - Insurer Did Not Waive Conditions - Henderson v. State Farm Fire and...more
U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Edison of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas recently issued a decision granting summary judgment for an insurance carrier in a first-party case involving alleged...more
In PAJ, Inc. v. Hanover Ins. Co., the Texas Supreme Court set forth the “notice-prejudice rule,” which states that unless an insurer was prejudiced by an insured’s delay in giving timely notice of its claim or suit, an...more
Merchants Preferred Insurance Company filed a declaratory judgment action in New York seeking a declaration that it had no duty to defend or to indemnify its insureds in an underlying Florida personal injury action arising...more
New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) is concerned that AI’s self-learning behavior increases the risks of unlawful or unfair discrimination. DFS will audit insurers’ use of AI. Such insurers need to maintain...more
In our January insurance update, we include three state cases addressing some less common situations. It’s not often that a pollution exclusion is interpreted in the context of an auto policy. But the South Dakota Supreme...more
The insureds owned a house covered by an all-risk homeowner’s insurance policy issued by Erie Insurance Company of New York that provided coverage for damage to the house unless specifically excluded. The policy contained an...more
Accepting coverage for part of a claim may subject an insurer to a policy’s appraisal process when the extent of covered damage is in dispute, according to a recent ruling issued by the Eastern District of Tennessee....more
In our March Insurance Update, we discuss four state supreme court cases and four cybercrime cases. The state high courts address: •From whose perspective should a consent-to-settle provision be judged? •What standard...more
After their living room ceiling collapsed, Heather and David Hutchinson submitted a claim for approximately $25,000 in damages to State Farm Fire & Casualty Company under their homeowners' policy. State Farm denied the claim...more
Mitchell v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, No. 3:17cv00170-M, 2018 WL 4572664 (N.D. Miss. Sept. 24, 2018) - Lorine Mitchell submitted a claim to State Farm for damage to her property from a storm. Under the terms of...more
State Farm has been granted a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) waiver to use drones, under the Small Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Rule (or Part 107), to assess damages in communities affected by Hurricane Florence....more
REAL PROPERTY UPDATE - Standing/Foreclosure: pursuant to Florida Rule of Procedure 1.260, the assignee of a note during pendency of a foreclosure acquires standing of original plaintiff lender - Spicer v Ocwen Loan...more
This week the Eighth Circuit issued its long-awaited decision in a class action against State Farm involving the “labor depreciation” issue that I have covered extensively on this blog. State Farm prevailed on both the merits...more
There have been two recent federal district court decisions in the widespread class action litigation involving the application of depreciation to the labor cost component of replacement cost value on property insurance...more
With the continued onslaught of hail and other weather related litigation in Texas, insurance carriers often elect to resolve claims through the appraisal process outlined in the policy. Insurance carriers historically...more
The Oregon Supreme Court, in Long v. Farmers Insurance Company of Oregon, ruled that “when an insured files an action against an insurer to recover sums owing on an insurance policy and the insurer subsequently pays the...more
In recent years, the number of Texas lawsuits arising from hail-damage claims to residential and commercial properties has reached staggering levels, leaving the courts in several Texas counties struggling to keep up with...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a per curiam opinion in De Jongh v. State Farm Lloyds, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 21432 (5th Cir. 2016) that clarified a typical but potentially tricky question involving...more
In Tidwell Enterprises v. Financial Pacific Ins. Co. (No. C078665, filed 11/29/16), a California appeals court held that that even though a house fire occurred after the policy period, there was nonetheless a possibility of...more
Toney v. State Farm Lloyds, Case No. 14-40914, 2016 WL 4784012 (5th Cir. Sept. 13, 2016). After a March 2012 hail storm damaged his home in Mission, Texas, Kenneth Toney (“Toney”) filed a claim with State Farm Lloyds...more
Virtually all property insurance policies contain an appraisal clause, which outlines the appraisal procedure in broad terms. Those broad terms sometimes do not provide much guidance about the process, or about the effect...more
In February this blog commented on Washington State’s newly-adopted definition of “collapse” in property insurance policies that contain no specific definition of the term. (Observer, February 8, 2016, Common Sense Prevails: ...more
In This Issue: - Southern District of California Denies Motion to Dismiss Bad Faith Claim in Homeowners Policy Dispute - Northern District of Indiana: No Bad Faith Where Insurer Has a Rational Basis for its...more