Generally, choices come alongside that make me surprise if judges are studying the identical insurance coverage insurance policies and insurance coverage legal guidelines the remainder of us are. The current Florida Clark opinion 1 is certainly one of them. In keeping with this glowing gem of judicial thought, it seems that it’s not sufficient to inform your insurance coverage firm, “Hey, my home was ripped aside by a hurricane.” No, no — you need to now apparently present particular person notices for every protection you would possibly later declare — instantly. Misplaced your roof? Notify that. Misplaced your couch? Separate discover. Misplaced the power to hire your now-soggy home? One other discover. Higher get your guidelines prepared the following time a Class 4 ranges your property.
Let’s take a easy instance. Your stunning beachfront resort burns to the bottom. You name your agent and breathlessly report: “My resort simply burned to ashes!” Apparently, underneath Clark, except you additionally scream into the telephone, “And all my beds and low makers burned too! And I received’t be renting any rooms for a 12 months!”, the insurance coverage firm can later deny your contents and rental loss claims for lack of “immediate discover.” As a result of clearly, within the aftermath of a complete loss, what individuals ought to concentrate on is ensuring they itemize each class of destruction straight away. Who cares about smoke inhalation or discovering a spot to sleep? We should fulfill the hyper-technical gods of “discover.”
Feeling skeptical? Let’s kick it, old skool. Image a ship setting sail in 1783. It sinks in a ferocious storm. The shipowner sends a dispatch to London: “The ship has sunk.” Lloyd’s of London, well-known for its bells, dutifully rings the ship loss bell. However underneath Clark’s new logic, somebody ought to have scurried over and stated, “Wait! Wait! That’s solely discover of the ship! The place’s the separate bell for the cargo?!” Possibly they need to have had totally different bells: one for the ship, one for the bales of cotton, one other for the spices, and a separate, dainty chime for the silks. In any case, it’s not sufficient to say the ship is on the underside of the ocean — we should notify individually that the cargo received moist, too.
Or let’s keep fashionable. A hurricane blows the whole roof off of your home, the partitions are bent inward, the inside is flooded, the furnishings is floating, and the neighbor’s canoe is resting the place your eating desk was. You promptly name your insurance coverage agent and say, “My home is destroyed.” However foolish you — except you concurrently checklist “roof gone,” “partitions ruined,” “furnishings destroyed,” “lack of rental revenue,” and “emotional devastation,” you may have breached your sacred obligation to supply discover. Naturally, your insurer will graciously pay you for perhaps the roof — however neglect the contents, neglect the leases, and please don’t even ask about mildew. You didn’t give “immediate discover” of these. Disgrace on you for pondering widespread sense utilized to property insurance coverage.
What this resolution does is inject a brand new degree of hyper-technical nonsense right into a easy idea that insurance coverage was a product designed to guard policyholders by paying protection advantages — not entice them. This resolution now permits sure insurance coverage firms — particularly these already steeped in a tradition of delay, deny, and defend — to invent a brand new method to argue: “Gotcha!” when individuals truthfully, shortly, and understandably notify them of losses.
Insurance coverage is rightfully marketed as offering safety, not creating obscure procedural hurdles that no cheap particular person may ever foresee. As an alternative, Clark invitations extra denials, delays, brawls, lawsuits, and appeals as a result of the legislation has by no means been required to provide discover on this method, and prospects struggling the loss don’t buy a coverage that claims that they’ve to supply discover of every protection impacted by the loss when offering the discover of loss.
Public adjusters, danger managers, and particularly insurance coverage brokers who’re normally the primary line of communication — listen. Once you get that frantic telephone name, e mail, or textual content from a buyer reporting their home on hearth, their constructing underwater, or their roof crusing off into the horizon, understand that merely forwarding “the home blew aside” might not be sufficient anymore. Some firms, emboldened by this resolution, will now argue that you simply needed to relay separate discover for the kitchen cupboards, the crown molding, and the misplaced 10-year tenant lease.
Be warned: Clark would possibly develop into the brand new favourite device of these insurance coverage firms that assume claims dealing with is a zero-sum recreation. And sure, I can be writing extra on this case as soon as I’ve the briefs and may dive deeper into the remainder of the choice.
Keep tuned. This was simply the opening bell — and don’t neglect to ring one for the furnishings, one other for the carpets, and one other for the misplaced rental revenue whilst you’re at it.
Considered The Day
“There’s nothing so absurd that for those who repeat it usually sufficient, individuals will consider it.”
— William James
1 Owners Selection Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Clark, No. 1D2023-1622, (Fla.1st DCA Mar. 19, 2025).