www.claimsjournal.com
In March of 2019, a fire damaged a home outside of Adams in rural southern Minnesota. Before the owner’s started repairs on their home, a second fire burned the home to the ground just two months after the first fire had occurred.
Farm Bureau Property & Casualty Insurance Co. paid $159,808.52 for the damages caused by the first fire. The owner’s filed a second claim for a total loss but, the carrier refused to issue another check for the $268,800 policy limit. The insurer has argued that the owner’s were only entitled to the difference between their first claim and the total loss amount, equaling $108,991.42.
On January 21st, a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the owner’s were entitled to $268,800 even though they had not yet spent the money their insurer paid them after the first incident. The judge said in the ruling that no court construing Minnesota law had been asked to decide whether an insurer can limit payments for successive losses occurring during the same policy period. It was also noted that the Farm Bureau policy states that coverage applies to each “accident, loss, and occurrence” and does not limit coverage for successive occurrences.