In Kings Ridge Community Association v. Sagamore Insurance Company, 37 Fla. L. Weekly D1604b (Fla. 5th DCA 2012), the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal held that a ceiling which dropped twelve inches in a damaged clubhouse due to rain water and overweight air conditioners met the definition of “collapse” under a Florida insurance policy. The trial court previously ruled that these same circumstances were not a state of “collapse”.
Florida Insurance Policy Construed to Provide Coverage
Florida law provides that a Court shall give effect to the plain meaning of the words in an insurance policy. If a provision in the insurance policy is susceptible to two different interpretations, that provision is deemed to be ambiguous. Ambiguous provisions in an insurance policy shall be construed to provide coverage as compared to excluding coverage.
In this instance, the insurance policy defined “collapse” as “an abrupt falling down or caving in of a building or any part of a building with the result that the building or part of the building cannot be occupied for its intended purpose.” The policy further defined collapse not to include those instances in which “a building or any part of a building that is in danger of falling down or caving in” or “a part of a building that is standing even if has separated from another part of the building”.
The insurance company argued that the ceiling had not fallen and since the building was still standing, there was no collapse as defined under the insurance policy. The Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal disagreed with the insurance company’s conclusion given that the insurance policy did not define how far a part of the building must fall for a “falling” to have taken place. The appellate court reasoned that the fact the ceiling dropped twelve inches qualified as a falling. Given that the Fifth District Court of Appeal found that there was a falling, the limitation of collapse as to the danger of falling did not apply. Likewise, the limitation of collapse to not include a part of the building that is standing did not apply since the ceiling was deemed to have fallen and there was no evidence that the ceiling had separated from the building.
Give With One Hand and Take Away With the Other
The insurance company also argued that there were exclusions under the insurance policy that did not provide coverage for collapse. In other words, even if there was coverage for collapse, there was a specific exclusion that excluded coverage for collapse. Florida insurance law does not permit an insurer to both provide coverage for a specific peril under the insurance policy and then at the same time try to exclude that coverage. The Fifth District Court of Appeal found that even if the exclusion applied, it at best directly contradicted and conflicted with the coverage given under the policy and is therefore ambiguous and coverage must be afforded to the insured.
Related Topics: Florida Insurance Law, Florida Insurance Policy Exclusions, Florida Insurance Policy Coverage Disputes
Authorship: Google
