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Property Insurance Summary Judgment Property Damage

Zelle  LLP

Massachusetts Collapse Decision Highlights Importance of Careful Underwriting

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During the underwriting process, carriers should review affirmative coverages not only to ensure consistency with applicable exclusions but also to make sure that the coverages themselves are internally consistent. Failure to...more

Cozen O'Connor

Insurer’s Use of Conflicting Reports Not Bad Faith, Says Court

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In El Dueno, LLC v. Mid-Century Insurance Company (2025 WL 1540329) (10th Cir. 2025)), the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgement on behalf of the insurer on the basis that the insurer did not act in bad...more

Carlton Fields

Connecticut Federal Court Construes Ambiguous Policy Exclusion in Favor of Coverage, but Rejects Bad Faith Claim

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In A Priori Family Office LLC v. Valley Forge Insurance Co., the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut found the undefined term “surface water” in an all-risk insurance policy’s water exclusion ambiguous, so...more

Cozen O'Connor

Noncompliance With Policy’s “Duties After Loss” Provision Leads to Denial of Fire Loss Claim

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In Caribe D. Billie v. Plymouth Rock Assurance Corp. et al, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut granted Plymouth Rock Assurance Corp.’s (“Insurer”) motion for summary judgment, holding that the Insurer was...more

Husch Blackwell LLP

Wisconsin Court of Appeals Upholds Ordinance or Law Exclusion in Insurance Coverage Dispute

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In a recent decision, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the application of an “Ordinance or Law Exclusion” in a business owner’s insurance policy issued by Germantown Mutual Insurance Company.[1] The case, involving...more

Zelle  LLP

Calif. Smoke Claim Ruling Gives Insurers Support On Denials

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In their recent Law360 guest article titled "Reconciling 2 Smoke Coverage Cases From California," the authors described a California appellate court's Feb. 7 opinion in Gharibian v. Wawanesa General Insurance Co. as an...more

Zelle  LLP

Any is Not All and The Future is Not Now: The Contours of the Cosmetic Damage Exclusion Taking Shape

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In Iyengar v. Liberty Insurance Corporation, No. SA-21-CV-1091-FB, 2024 WL 5505300 (W.D. Tex. Dec. 13, 2024), District Judge Biery denied Plaintiffs’ Motion for Clarification regarding Magistrate Judge Bemporad’s...more

Marshall Dennehey

Third District Court of Appeal Rules Affidavit Lacks Evidence Linking Damage to Tropical Storm Eta

Marshall Dennehey on

Thomas A. Bouchard, Jr. v. Citizens Prop. Ins. Corp., Fla. 3d DCA, No. 3D12-2202, February 19, 2025 - Thomas Bouchard, the appellant, appealed a final summary judgment order entered in favor of Citizens Property Insurance...more

Cozen O'Connor

Lack of Insurable Interest Precludes Recovery for Property Damage

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In Ram Krishana Inc. d/b/a Motel 6 Sulphur v. Mt. Hawley Insurance Co. (2025 WL 371016) (S.D.N.Y. 2025)), the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York determined that the plaintiff lacked an...more

Cozen O'Connor

Fifth Circuit Reaffirms Appraisal and Bad Faith Jurisprudence as Policyholders Continue to Probe for Opportunities

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The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a summary judgment granted to the insurer over a policyholder’s argument that payment of an appraisal award and interest may extinguish an insurer’s liability...more

Cozen O'Connor

Pennsylvania District Court Holds Materiality Does Not Require Fraud

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A District Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently held that an insured’s submission of  invoices altered to inflate replacement costs for water-damaged inventory constituted material misrepresentations. ...more

Carlton Fields

Fifth Circuit Holds That Ensuing Loss Provision of Builders’ Risk Policy Requires Two Separate Events to Qualify for the...

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In Balfour Beatty Construction, LLC v. Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company, No. 19-20216 (August 3, 2020), the Fifth Circuit determined that Liberty Mutual’s policy does not cover a construction company’s claim for window...more

Carlton Fields

Insured’s Leaky “Abrupt” Interpretation of All-Risk Insurance Collapses Under Eleventh Circuit Scrutiny

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In S.O. Beach Corp. v. Great American Insurance Company of New York, No. 18-1967 (11th Cir. Oct. 31, 2019), the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in full to the insurer, finding there...more

Cozen O'Connor

Texas Federal Court Holds that Named Storm Deductible Applies Even in the Absence of Wind Damage

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Judge Nancy Atlas of the Southern District of Texas cut through competing arguments to resolve a high-profile dispute involving a Hurricane Harvey claim through Contract Interpretation 101....more

Maynard Nexsen

Insurer Defeats Business Interruption Claim on Property Insurance Policy and Accompanying Bad Faith Claim in Federal Court in...

Maynard Nexsen on

A Raleigh jewelry store recently lost its bid to prove coverage, bad faith and punitive damages in a classic case of seemingly strong evidence but actually nothing-burger evidence. In Michael Borovsky Goldsmith, LLC v....more

White and Williams LLP

Georgia Court of Appeals Holds Lay Witness Can Provide Opinion Testimony on the Value of a Property If the Witness Had an...

In Woodrum v. Ga. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co., 815 S.E.2d 650 (Ga. Ct. App. 2018), the Court of Appeals of Georgia considered whether the lower court properly disqualified a contractor as an expert witness and excluded the...more

Butler Weihmuller Katz Craig LLP

Court Finds AIA Subrogation Waiver Inapplicable; Appeal Pending

In Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co. v. Fowlkes Plumbing LLC, 17-cv-010-GHD-DAS, 2018 WL 842169 (N.D. Miss. Feb. 12, 2018), the District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi held that the subrogation waiver of...more

Robinson+Cole Property Insurance Coverage...

Scope of Recoverable Damages: District of New Jersey Finds Insureds Not Entitled to Replacement Cost Value Until Damaged Property...

Property insurance policies typically require that the insured repair or replace damaged property before recovering on a replacement cost value (RCV) basis. ...more

Carlton Fields

An Expert Is Only As Good As His Actual Experience

Carlton Fields on

Experts are often used to address issues of causation and scope of damages in insurance coverage matters. It is well established, however, that an expert must be qualified through specific training or actual experience. ...more

Butler Weihmuller Katz Craig LLP

The Eleventh Circuit Strengthens the Third District Court of Appeal's Decision in Cheetham: Know Thy Policy Terms

In Cameron v. Scottsdale Insurance Company, No. 17-11907, 2018 WL 1791889, at *1 (11th Cir. Apr. 16, 2018), the Eleventh Circuit vacated the lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the insurer and relied on...more

Robinson+Cole Property Insurance Coverage...

The Protective Safeguards—Heat Maintained Endorsement Means What it Says: Eastern District of New York Grants Summary Judgment...

Typical first party property policies include provisions that address failure to maintain heat as excluded losses. The Eastern District of New York recently analyzed a specific endorsement requiring that heat be maintained at...more

Cozen O'Connor

Flood Exclusion Unambiguously Excludes Coverage For $49.5M In Hurricane Sandy Losses Caused By Storm Surge

Cozen O'Connor on

Cozen O’Connor attorneys Thomas McKay III, Richard Mackowsky, Charles Jesuit, and Melissa Brill recently secured summary judgment from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in favor of Great...more

Cozen O'Connor

Coverage to Rebuild a Foundation to Comply with Changed Building Codes Following a Fire are Subject to Code-Upgrade Endorsement’s...

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Does the efficient proximate cause rule serve to afford coverage for the additional costs to rebuild the foundation of a home in compliance with changed building code requirements beyond the sublimit of liability of an...more

Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP

Repeated Use of Defective Fireplace Triggers Duty to Defend Even if Active Fire Does Not Break Out Until After End of Policy...

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

Cozen O'Connor

Sometimes It’s Hard to Waive Subrogation: Pacific Indemnity v. Deming

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According to the recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Pacific Indemnity Company v. Deming, 2016 WL 3607028, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 12374 (July 5, 2016) common contractual provisions that...more

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