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Time to Review Policy Limits Ahead of Disaster Season

Insurance Business America

As wildfires spread across western areas of the US and Canada, consuming commercial and personal properties in their wake, leaders in the insurance industry are bracing for impact and issuing claims advise for policyholders affected by the fires.

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“Property insurance policies and business interruption policies tend to have procedural hurdles to coverage, which need to be carefully scrutinized and, if possible, carefully complied with,” said Linda Kornfeld, partner and vice chair of Blank Rome’s insurance recovery practice. “For example, policies typically have notice language regarding the timeframe within which a policyholder needs to give notice. Insurance companies like to strictly enforce those timeframes or at least argue they should be strictly enforced.

“Sometimes that notice period is defined as 30 days and in other policies it’s defined ‘as soon as possible’. From a practical perspective, if you’ve suffered damages, it’s really important to get the insurance company involved as soon as possible. If a company needs to spend dollars responding to an event, it’s always better to get the insurer’s approval beforehand in order to smooth out the claims process.”

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"Time to Review Policy Limits Ahead of Disaster Season," by Bethan Moorcraft was published in Insurance Business America on July 23, 2018.