Articles Posted in General

Fort Worth insurance lawyers need to know about this Beaumont Court of Appeals case. It is styled, Joe Ware v. United Fire Lloyds.

It is an appeal by Ware wherein he is disputing the trial court’s award of attorney fees in a property insurance dispute. He was awarded $3,133.20 in the case but he felt like he proved attorney fees of $133,497.00.

Ware owned two commercial properties in Orange County at the time of Hurricane Rita in 2005 and Hurricane Ike in 2008. After Hurricane Rita, but before Hurricane Ike, Ware filed a lawsuit on an insurance claim for damage to the properties. He was paid $146,170.85. After Hurricane Ike, Ware filed a claim for damage to the same properties. Ware made a written pre-suit demand of $187,121.51. Lloyds paid Ware $12,197.81 on the Ike claim.

Here is a story all attorneys need to know and be able to tell their clients about.

The story is from The Southeast Texas Legal Journal. The title of the story is “Insurance Company Seeking Reimbursement For Money Paid Following Collision.”

The article tells us that an insurance company has filed suit against a Beaumont woman after it doled out more than $6,000 to one of its clients following a collision.

Texas insurance lawyers who keep up with the new laws being proposed and passed by the State Legislature need to know some of this information.

Here is some news from the end of the 83rd Legislative Session.

Lobbyists for the insurance industry filed a bunch of anti-policy bills that were designed to make it harder to file a claim and be paid what you are owed. The consumer group, Texas Watch, commissioned a statewide public opinion survey to show lawmakers that Texans were not interested in enacting additional protections for insurance companies. The results of the survey were clear. Texas voters indicated they believe that insurance companies should be required to fulfill their obligations to claimants, and, if they don’t, they should fact stiff penalties in court. This survey and its’ results helped lay the groundwork for the defeat of a host of pro-insurance industry proposals.

Insurance attorneys in Fort Worth and the Dallas area will have clients calling at one time or another asking about appraisals.

Many property insurance policies contain appraisal clauses. These clauses define a process for appraising the value of the damaged property, if the parties cannot agree. Common provisions call for each party to chose an appraiser. Those appraisers then choose a neutral third appraiser, called the umpire. If the parties and their appraisers cannot agree on an umpire, either party may petition a court to appoint one. Once the appraisers and umpire are chosen, they value the loss. If all do not agree on the value, the decision of any two will control. The intent is to give the insurance company and the insured a simple, speedy, and fair means of deciding disputed values.

When the two appraisers do not agree, the umpire doe not simply choose between them. It is the duty of the umpire to to ascertain and determine, in the exercise of his own judgment and as the result of his own investigation, the values of the disputed items.

A Weatherford attorney who handles insurance claims needs to have an awareness of the potential recovery on a breach of insurance contract claim. Here is a little food for thought in that regard.

The 1988, Vail v. Texas Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co., case discusses this. The Texas Supreme Court issued the opinion and the case regards lots of issues and discussion regarding insurance law. Part of that law deals with damages for breach of the insurance contract. The Court said that policy benefits are the basic recovery allowed for an insurance company breach of its contractual obligations under the insurance contract. An insurance company’s refusal to pay the insured’s claim causes damages in at least the amount of the policy benefits wrongfully withheld. Some would call this “benefit of the bargain” damages.

In addition, the insured should be able to recover consequential damages that are the foreseeable result of the insurance company breach of the insurance contract. The argument to be anticipated with this rule is being able to explain what and why a consequential damage is actually a consequential damage and not a damage they may have occurred anyway. But as far as consequential damages are concerned, numerous cases hold that insurance contracts are subject to the same rules as other contracts. This is backed up in Texas case law and made clear in the 1994, Texas Supreme Court case, Hernandez v. Gulf Group Lloyds.

Most insurance law attorney will keep up with the news related to the insurance field. The Dallas Morning News ran an article recently that is good news for consumers of insurance products. The title of the article is “Texas Senate Forcing Out State Insurance Commissioner.” The author is Terrence Shultz. He keeps up with these issues in Austin and gets good information. Here is what the article tells us:

Texas Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman will apparently have to step down as the state’s top insurance regulator because she cannot garner the necessary Senate votes for confirmation.

Kitzman, who was appointed by Gov. Rick Perry nearly two years ago, has faced opposition from Democrats and Republicans in the upper chamber, several senators say. To remain as commissioner, she would need the support of at least two-thirds of senators in the current legislative session.

Attorneys handling insurance claims would want to keep up with general news in the world of insurance. The New York Times published an article of interest.

The article is titled, “For Insurers, No Doubt On Climate Change.” Here is what it tells us:

If there were one American industry that would be particularly worried about climate change it would have to be insurance, right? From Hurricane Sandy’s devastating blow to the Northeast to the protracted drought that hit the Midwest Corn Belt, natural catastrophes across the United States pounded insurers last year, generating $35 billion in privately insured property losses, $11 billion more than the average over the last decade.

Dallas insurance attorneys need to know a few of the regulations regarding title insurance policies.

The title insurance business in Texas is almost completely regulated by the Texas Department of Insurance, and policies may not be issued except as provided by Title 11 of the Texas Insurance Code. This section of the Texas Insurance Code is also known as the “Texas Title Insurance Act.”

Any person, business, corporation, whether in Texas or outside of Texas, which engages in providing title insurance, and their agents, must operate under the control and supervision of the rules promulgated by the Commissioner of the Texas Department of Insurance. This rule is found in Section 2703.001.

Dallas insurance lawyers also need to know about “title insurance.”

When purchasing land or anything that sits on land, the buyer will want to verify that the seller of the land is the true owner of the land and has good title to the land. If the buyer has a lender involved, the lender will usually require title insurance as a condition of the loan. There are many interests that land could be subject to. These interests include liens, mineral interests, easements, rights of way, etc. The purchaser of title insurance is seeking to avoid the necessity and responsibility of checking, examining and analyzing public records to determine the title to the land. Thus, a title company is sought to do this research and issue title insurance. A title insurance company is to:

1) check the status of the title to the property; and