Source: https://mlslaw.wordpress.com/category/property-damage-2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 20:46:23+00:00

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With the recent biting cold, many property owners are taking steps to protect their investments to the best of their ability. Some great information on how best to prevent disasters caused by freezing water pipes can be found in the Resource Links at the bottom of this article.
Recent research suggests a strong correlation between the loss of arctic sea ice and a particular pattern of the jet stream that causes the more frequent cold spells we feel here in Indiana. But wherever you may fall on the never ending debate over global warming, one thing is beyond debate: recent temperatures in Indiana have been unbearably and dangerously cold. It is reasonable to expect that despite our best efforts a great deal of property damage will result from frozen and burst pipes.
Insurance claims involving frozen pipes, ice dams, and other cold-weather-related disasters can prove to be particularly frustrating for homeowners and businesses. For example, many commercial policies include provisions that may limit or even exclude coverage for the catastrophic damage that can occur when pipes freeze, then burst. If you have a dispute or potential dispute with your insurance company about coverage for frozen pipes or water damage, the time to seek advice and representation is now. The property damage attorneys at Parr Richey are experienced with all aspects of these sometimes difficult claims and there is no fee charged for initial consultation.
The last time Indiana experienced the “polar vortex” the number of insurance claims for frozen and burst pipes skyrocketed. Some estimated the cost to the US economy of such claims to exceed $5 billion. Much of this loss is borne by individual homeowners and business owners who are not properly reimbursed for the loss and damage. If you need help with your claim, Contact Us.
What happens if you operate a business – say an auto repair shop – as a means of making a living, and then suffer a fire loss to personal property located in that business? Assume the fire occurs as a result of working on a car in your repair shop, but that at the time of the fire you were not actually engaged in business; rather, you were working on your own car, or perhaps helping a friend to work on her car as a favor. Would the business activities exclusion in your homeowner’s insurance policy preclude you from recovering for the loss of your personal property?
The rule in Indiana is that “an insured is engaged in a business pursuit only when he pursues a continued or regular activity for the purpose of earning a livelihood. American Family Mutual Ins. Co. v. Bentley, 352 N.E.2d 860, 865 (Ind. Ct. App. 1976) (emphasis added); see also Asbury v. Indiana Union Mut. Ins. Co., 441 N.E.2d 232, 239 (Ind. Ct. App. 1982) (same). Further, “[w]hether an activity is a ‘business’ or property is ‘business property’ under an insurance policy is almost always a factual question presented for determination by the trier of fact or jury.” Id., at 243. The question, then, should turn on what you were doing at the time, and not just on the fact that the loss occurred at your business.
In a 2012 decision the district court for the Northern District of Indiana rejected the argument that personal property that is the same as an insured’s business property automatically means a business exclusion applied to preclude coverage for the loss. In Bachman v. AMCO Insurance Company, 2012 WL 4322746 (N.D.Ind. Sept. 20, 2012), the insured sued AMCO for breach of contract after the insurance company applied a $10,000 limitation in its policy applicable to property located in the residence premises used mainly for “business” purposes. Following a theft, the insured, who sold sports cards out of his home, made a claim under his homeowner’s policy for some $150,000 worth of Fleer basketball cards. The cards had been purchased with money from his business, but the insured considered the particular cards stolen to be his “personal collection”. Id. at *1-2. The insured even admitted that he considered his personal collection to be “investments” that he planned to sell one day when he was “ready to retire.” Id., at *1.
The insurance company argued that the $10,000 business property limitation in its policy applied to the stolen basketball cards and, “[r]elying on excerpts from [the insured’s] examination under oath, . . . contend[ed] that the subject property was business property because it was stored in a manner indistinguishable from the business inventory and was acquired with resources from [the business] with the intention of eventually being sold through the company.” Id., at *5. The insurance company relied on Asbury v. Ind. Union Mut. Ins. Co. (and two other cases) to support its argument. Id.
To the extent that AMCO argues that the Fleer basketball cards automatically fit within the business property limitation at issue simply because Mr. Bachman operated a sports memorabilia business out of his home on a consistent basis at the time of the burglary, the argument cannot result in the granting of summary judgment in AMCO’s favor. No one disputes that Spectator Sportscards, Inc. constituted a “business” and that Mr. Bachman regularly and continually sold sports memorabilia from his home office to third persons for the purpose of earning a livelihood. . . . However, the limitation in AMCO’s policy plainly depends on the use of the property at issue.
Id., at *7 (emphasis in original; internal citation omitted).
Issues like this can arise in many contexts. The application of exclusions in policies is not necessarily simple or obvious, and sometimes the coverage is actually more broad than it seems. If you have suffered a loss and are involved in a dispute with your insurance company about what is covered and what is excluded by your policy, whether it is a homeowners policy or a commercial policy, you should contact an attorney with experience reading and interpreting the coverages, conditions, limitations and exclusions. Sometimes the insurance company takes a position that looks correct at first glance, but they may not be looking at the whole picture.
In the aftermath of a catastrophic explosion or fire, it is not surprising when victims or their family members do not think about the need to preserve evidence. But in those cases where there is litigation to determine who or what may bear fault for causing the incident the efforts, or lack of efforts, to preserve and protect the evidence taken in the immediate aftermath of the fire or explosion will prove to be critical to the parties.
Preserving the evidence is in everyone’s interest because the ultimate goal of any litigation is to determine the truth of what happened. If it can be shown that the evidence was in the control of one party or another and the party in control failed to take appropriate steps to preserve the evidence so that other interested parties could examine it, the party in control may be accused of “spoliation” of evidence. In that case, the court may ultimately instruct the jury that had the evidence been preserved and made available it would have been adverse to the party who could have preserved it — the so-called “adverse inference instruction”.
An enormous amount of information can be gleaned from what may appear to be unlikely sources. Care must be taken to preserve even some materials that may seem to be inconsequential. For example, lithium ion batteries such as those used in phones, tablets and laptops have a very high energy density. Although the electronic circuitry in chargers are supposed to prevent overcharging, those circuits can fail allowing the batteries to overheat and catch fire. Yet, some fire investigators, focused on more obvious causes, can miss this evidence, which gets scooped up with all the other fire debris after the initial scene investigations have been concluded.
It is important for the victims of fires and explosions to have their own experts and investigators review the scene and not rely solely on those sent to the scene by their insurance company. It is also important to act quickly, before the critical evidence is gone.
If you have questions regarding the need to preserve or protect evidence after a fire or explosion, contact an experienced attorney for help.
Here is the 2013 Homeowners Complaint Index published by the Indiana Department of Insurance.
For further explanation of this information, visit the Indiana Department of Insurance Website.
Residential and commercial property insurance policies always exclude coverage for fire losses in the event the fire was deliberately set by the insured or at the insured’s direction. The language of the exclusion appears in various familiar forms: Regardless of the form, the importance of the exclusion cannot be overstated. If the insurance company has a reasonable, good faith basis to believe that the fire was intentionally set, it can deny the claim.
Arson investigations do not occur in a vacuum, and it is not (or at least it should not be) the goal of an arson investigation to simply build a case against the insured. Rather, the goal should be to discover what really happened – fairly and objectively. An arson investigation is nothing more than a coverage investigation, and it is well-established that the duty of good faith and fair dealing governs an insurer’s behavior during a coverage investigation.
An insurer has a duty to deal with its insureds in good faith, and a cause of action exists for the breach of that duty. Erie Ins. Co. v. Hickman, 622 N.E.2d 515, 519 (Ind. 1993); County Line Towing, Inc. v. Cincinnati Ins. Co., 714 N.E.2d 285, 291 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999), trans. denied. This duty to deal in good faith with insureds “. . . includes an obligation to refrain from causing an unfounded delay in making payment; making an unfounded refusal to pay policy proceeds; exercising an unfair advantage to pressure an insured into settlement of his claim; and deceiving the insured.” Id. “. . . [A]n insurer which denies liability knowing that there is no rational, principled basis for doing so has breached its duty.” Becker v. American Family Ins. Group, 697 N.E.2d 106, 108 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998). In order to find that an insurance company committed bad faith in a particular case, a jury ultimately must find from the evidence that the company had “a state of mind reflecting dishonest purpose, moral obliquity, furtive design, or ill will.” Colley v. Indiana Farmers Mut. Ins. Group, 691 N.E.2d 1259, 1261 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998).
“Indiana has long recognized that there is a legal duty implied in an insurance contract that the insurer must deal in good faith with its insured. This duty is breached when an insurer fails to settle a claim that could not in good faith be disputed.” Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Parkinson, 487 N.E.2d 162, 164 (Ind. Ct. App. 1985). The duty to act in good faith includes, but is not limited to, four types of obligations: “to refrain from (1) making an unfounded refusal to pay policy proceeds; (2) causing an unfounded delay in making payment; (3) deceiving the insured; and (4) exercising any unfair advantage to pressure an insured into a settlement of his claim.” Erie, 622 N.E.2d at 519.
The ultimate claim decision is only one of the four (4) types of obligations described in Erie, and as the Indiana Supreme Court has made clear, a claim for bad faith may lie even if there is a good faith coverage dispute. In Monroe Guaranty Insurance Company v. Magwerks Corporation, 829 N.E.2d 968 (Ind. 2005), the Indiana Supreme Court held that an insurance company’s “conduct leading up to and including the issuance of the denial letter” may rise to the level of bad faith. Id. at 977. The Magwerks case stands for the proposition that even if there is a “good faith dispute over whether coverage did or not exist”, a claim for breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing must still be submitted to the jury if there is evidence that the conduct of the insurance company leading up to the denial breached the duty. Id.
The public policy interest served by allowing bad faith claims against insurance companies to be heard is to discourage insurers from denying legitimate claims on the theory that they would only be liable for contract damages. Patel v. United Fire & Cas. Co., 80 F.Supp.2d 948, 959 (N.D. Ind. 2000). “. . . [T]he goal of Erie is to permit plaintiffs in bad faith actions to recover damages beyond those traceable to the contract, including punitive damages.” Id.
Given these authorities, it is clear that even if an insurance company has a legitimate basis for conducting an arson investigation as part of its coverage determination, it must always consider its duty to the insured while handling the investigation in the context of the pending claim. The investigation should not result in undue delay in making the claim decision; it should not involve any deception of the insured or unfair or oppressive conduct. And, importantly, an insurance company cannot insulate itself from bad faith liability by conducting an investigation in a manner that is calculated to construct a “pretextual basis” for denial of the claim. See, e.g., State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Simmons, 963 S.W.2d 42, 44; 1998 Tex. LEXIS 30, **6 (Tex. 1998). The goal must always be the truth and to find coverage for the insured if possible, not to manufacture a pretextual basis to deny – or delay payment of – the claim.
(1) The department or an agent, an employee, or a designee of the department.
(2) Law enforcement officials or an agent or employee of a law enforcement official.
(3) The National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
(4) Any agency or bureau of federal or state government established to detect and prevent fraudulent insurance acts.
(5) Any other organization established to detect and prevent fraudulent insurance acts.
(6) An agent, an employee, or a designee of an entity referred to in subdivisions (3) through (5).
(d) This section does not abrogate or modify in any way any common law or statutory privilege or immunity.
I.C. § 27-1-3-22 (c) and (d) (Emphasis added). A corollary of this provision is that if the information is provided in bad faith or while the person is acting maliciously or with fraudulent intent then the immunity does not apply. It is here where the pitfalls are found.
The investigator states that the insured behaved unnaturally during or after the fire.
Any decision to deny a claim based on a report containing such bogus claims is likely to be challenged in court, and the reliance may be used to claim the insurance company acted in bad faith. The “science” behind these bogus findings has long-since been debunked, and the insured will argue that it is not reasonable for the insurance company to rely on any report containing such nonsense as an allegedly good faith basis to deny a claim.
Another common error occurs when the insurance company SIU investigator seizes the opportunity to have the state or local authorities investigate the insured with the hope that the authorities will make a determination that the fire was incendiary, thus giving his or her employer a basis to deny the claim.
It is common and expected for SIU investigators to work closely in tandem with the State Fire Marshal when investigating “suspicious” fires. But this situation is fraught with peril for the insurance company. The duty of good faith and fair dealing requires that the insurance company keep the insured’s interests in mind at all times, including during the arson investigation. Yet the overwhelming temptation during an arson investigation seems to be to provide enforcement officials with only those materials that tend to prove the insured’s guilt. If the insurance company’s investigator influences the authorities to change their conclusion or adopt the investigator’s conclusion as to the origin and cause of the fire, and if the insurance company’s investigator routinely works primarily for insurance companies, and if the investigator turns out to have missed important evidence or used inappropriate methodology, it is an easy argument for the insured to make that the investigation was merely an attempt to manufacture a claim defense. In a phrase, the SIU went too far.
For further information about the proper role of the arson investigation in the context of an insurance claim, contact Mike Schultz or Jim Buddenbaum at Parr Richey Obremskey Frandsen & Patterson LLP. www.parrlaw.com (317) 269-2500.

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