(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Extreme Energy Fire & Water Restoration LLC came to Homestead. They went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Julio and Nora Lugones.
The Lugoneses could not afford what Extreme needed to repair and mitigate damage to their home. However, they had a homeowner's policy with Lloyd's. Extreme contracted with the Lugoneses to repair and mitigate the damage to the Lugoneses' home in exchange for Lugoneses' right to be paid for the loss under their homeowner's policy with Lloyd's.
There was a problem, though, it seemed. Lloyd's thought so. There was an anti-assignment provision in the Lloyd's policy. Lloyd's refused to recognize Extreme as the Lugoneses' assignee of the policy proceeds.
So Extreme sued Lloyd's for breach of the homeowner's insurance contract. Lloyd's defended on the basis of the anti-assignment clause in the same homeowner's insurance policy. The trial judge agreed with Lloyd's that the assignment was barred by the policy.
On appeal, Florida's Third District Court of Appeal reversed. The Florida appellate court made short work of Lloyd's argument:
For more than a century, the law in Florida has been well-settled: an insured need not obtain the consent of the insurer before making a post-loss assignment of its right to payment of a claim under an insurance policy, and any attempt by an insurer to restrict the insured's right to do so is invalid.
Extreme Emergency Fire & Water Restor. LLC v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's of London, No. 3D20-5, 2020 WL 7379133, at *1 (Fla. 3d DCA December 16, 2020) (stated NOT FINAL).
That settles the matter in Florida, at least until any further review by the full Third District Court of Appeal in this case, perhaps, or by the Supreme Court of Florida in this or some other case. At the same time, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma reached a similar result one day before the decision was reached in the Extreme case. The Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision was discussed in an article published here the day after it was decided, MAJORITY WINNER RECOGNIZED ON ISSUE OF POST-LOSS ASSIGNMENT ... OF PROPERTY INSURANCE COVERAGE CLAIM. That was the same day that the Third District panel published the Extreme decision, which is now the subject of this article.
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