Flying on the Fourth. (Photo ©Dennis J. Wall)
Florida has an insurable interest statute. Fla. Stat. § 627.405. It provides that you have an insurable interest in property whenever you have "any actual, lawful, and substantial economic interest in the safety or preservation of the subject of the insurance free from loss, destruction, or pecuniary damage or impairment."
Seems clear, doesn't it? Seems strong, too, right?
In fact, it used to be the law that the statute provided the holder of an insurable interest the right to sue under her homeowner's policy. Not any more.
In Reconco v. Integon Nat'l Ins. Co., 312 So. 3d 914 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021), an intermediate appellate court in Florida held that the only thing that counts any more to claim rights under the policy -- in that case, a homeowner with an insurable interest in her home was claiming the right to arbitration under the force-placed insurance policy -- is the policy itself. Force-placed insurance policies often provide that the homeowner is not insured, just like the policy at issue in this case.
Since the homeowner is not an insured under the force-placed insurance policy, the homeowner may have an insurable interest in her home but the homeowner has no rights under the force-placed insurance policy. Only the money lender has rights under the force-placed insurance policy. Reconco, 312 So. 3d at 917-18.
Think that force-placed insurance issues are a thing of the past, a relic of the 2008-2009 Great Recession? Think again. The opinion does not give us a date of when the premiums and the policy were placed by force on the homeowner who legally could never complain, but that does not obscure the fact that the issues are recent and not a thing of the past at all. The premiums and the policy in this case were force-placed after the homeowner bought the property in 2013, and before 2017 when Hurricane Irma struck her house.
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