Posted On: January 16, 2007, 12:45 am CST

Posted By: Other References

IJ's article was pretty light on details. I'm sure more will come out later.


Quoting from the New York Times:

[Begin Quote]
After Hurricane Katrina, State Farm and other insurers balked at paying claims, arguing that much of the damage to houses was caused by flooding, which is not covered by a typical homeowner policy. Many insurers also contended that if any damage to a home had come from water, it nullified the basic coverage for wind damage.

Judge Senter agreed in a ruling that the insurers were not obligated to pay for flood damage. But he said that when both wind and water damaged or destroyed a house, it was the burden of the insurance company to prove how much of the loss was because of water and pay for any wind damage.

A clerk for Judge Senter said in a telephone interview from Gulfport that experts for State Farm acknowledged in court documents that some damage to the Broussard's home had come from wind. But, he said, "they did not offer evidence during trial" showing how much of the damage was from water and how much from wind, as Judge Senter had required.

Ultimately, he said, the judge ruled that State Farm was liable for all the damage because the insurer had not provided enough evidence "the jury could use to segregate" the wind from the water damage.
[End Quote]


Quoting the Associated Press:

[Begin Quote]
State Farm and other insurers say their homeowner policies cover damage from wind but not from water, and that the policies exclude damage that could have been caused by a combination of both, even if hurricane-force winds preceded a storm's rising water.

Senter, however, ruled that State Farm couldn't prove that Katrina's storm surge was responsible for all of the damage to the Broussards' home. The judge also said the testimony failed to establish how much damage was caused by wind and how much resulted from storm surge.
[End Quote]


One point both articles make in different ways -- insurers claimed their concurrent causation clauses applied to damage that "could have" been caused by either excluded water or covered wind. But none of the concurrent causation clauses I've seen actually say that -- they exclude damage that *was* caused by the excluded peril. "could have been" and "was" are two very different standards of evidence.