Opinion ID: 2167431
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: A Brief History of Appraisal Clauses

Text: Insurance appraisal clauses have been around for a long time. In 1888 in Scottish Union & National Insurance Co. v. Clancy, this Court enforced an appraisal clause much like the one used here. [6] It would be going too far to say the Court approved of such clauses, but we unequivocally found them enforceable: However injudicious it may be for parties to bind themselves by such agreement, it seems to be well settled that, having done so, they cannot disregard it. . . . In the absence of fraud, accident, or mistake, the parties having agreed that the amount of loss shall be determined in a particular way, we are constrained to hold that such stipulation is valid. . . . [7] Today, appraisal clauses are uniformly included in most forms of property insurance policies. [8] Virtually every property insurance policy for both homeowners and corporations contains a provision specifying `appraisal' as a means of resolving disputes about the `amount of loss' for a covered claim. [9] An appraisal clause like the one used here appears in almost every homeowners, automobile, and property policy in Texas. [10] Although the history of such clauses is both deep and wide, they have required this Court's attention only five times since Scottish Union : in 1892, [11] 1897, [12] 1919, [13] 1965, [14] and 2002. [15] All of these cases concerned waiver or enforceability of the appraisal clause itself; we have never resolved a dispute about the scope of appraisal, or the meaning of amount of loss. Accordingly, in addressing this issue for the first time we keep in mind that appraisals have apparently resolved such matters for many years without our aid.