A touch of the flu prevented me from getting to the Windstorm Insurance Conference today as early as planned, but it did not completely prevent me from attending today.
DAVE BARRY was the keynote speaker at the General Session. Mr. Barry is a resident of Miami and he is very familiar with the constant predictions of hurricanes which never come. "There might be a hurricane here."
Mr. Barry said that he bought a generator after the last hurricanes hit Florida "that could power Cincinnati." However, despite those continuing predictions he mentioned, no hurricanes have hit Florida for years now. He thinks that the reason is that he bought that honkin' generator.
"BAD FAITH LAW" was the breakout session that set the tone for the day of presentations today. The Wind Conference has a policy of no mechanical recordings, and as far as identifying individual speakers making specific comments: "What goes on here, stays here."
It is instructive to contemplate that out of all the First-Party Bad Faith Cases filed in Florida, a review of Florida cases (or claims?) of Bad Faith done by or for one of the presenters yielded half a dozen verdicts. The rest were settlements, proving once again what we knew before: Bad Faith cases do not generally go to Trial, they are settled.
"SEPARATING WIND AND WATER DAMAGE / CONCURRENT CAUSATION ANALYSIS" was a breakout session too. During this outstanding presentation, each of the three presenters emphasized the necessity of experience and knowledge in adjusting today's catastrophic claims, for example slab claims.
The presenters pointed out that we are in a new age of complex catastrophe claims. The heart of those claims is determining cause and origin, they said. That is whey in their judgment there are separate insurance policies for wind and for flood. (Or, actually, wind vs. water.) See generally John K. DiMugno, Stephen Plitt, and Dennis J. Wall, "Catastrophe Claims: Insurance Coverage for Natural and Man-Made Disasters" (Thomson Reuters West, 2014 Supplements in process), and see in particular Dennis J. Wall, , "Overview of the Participants in the Claims Handling Process," "ACCC or 'Lead-In Language'" and "Water and Flood". Id., §§ 2:1, 7:5 and 7:6.
"PROVING YOUR CASE AT TRIAL" was a great topper for the day of presentations. It provides the concluding note for this article: Consider what one of the presenters voiced as his own experience in trying cases. He said that Jurors most often decide cases, including insurance cases presumably, based on answering these questions: "How will the answer to this question be good for me? How will the answer to this question protect me and my family?"
© 2014 by Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved. No claim to original U.S. Government works. The author wants to thank the people running the Windstorm Insurance Conference in Orlando this year for all their kind help. In particular, the author thanks Ms. Susan J. Coone. She has been a great help, and she clearly has worked very hard along with the rest of the Wind Conference to make this year's Conference a success. She has done it all with grace.
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