Court Opinion

ID: 9738596
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:57:41.218538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:07.170661
License: Public Domain

M. J. Kelly, J.
(concurring). I concur in the result reached by Judge Allen, but would prefer to limit our decision to the facts and address the rationale of the trial judge’s decision which found the plaintiff’s claim related to third-party benefits and not to no-fault personal injury protection benefits. I believe the rule should be that an insurance company which has notice of a given claim on a given policy, as evidenced by State Farm’s March 9, 1977, letter of acknowledgment, should not be able to disclaim notice for PIP benefits while negotiating, adjusting, reserving, or denying benefits on the same policy arising out of the same accident for the same claimant for third-party benefits.
I do not think that the rationale should be based on a waiver analysis because such might encourage the insurance companies to postpone acknowledgment of claims with the concomitant result of increased resort to the court with claims that should be adjusted without litigation.