Okay, I'm on vacation, but this post is so stupid, I had to respond.
Stop readin' this frickin' website, drink frozen drinks with umbrellas on 'em, make love with your wife.... Oh, Stooped iz as stuppid duz. 
First, Lid is a 'Horn, yes, but one I respect. He's solid politically.
Second, Lid and I are both folks with J.D.s. However, I think Lid's inner and outer lawyer is getting the best of him here. And, I mean in a big way. How is a judge saying that the policy will be enforced as written mean the insurance company is playing it "closer to the vest"?
Playin' Devil's Advocate a wee bit in the initial post. Now, the question is, did the insurance co. deny the ENTIRE claim initially... or did it segregate out damages caused by flood vs. wind damage? With the judge's decision, it would appear as if the insurance co. denied the entire claim. If so, and the homeowner was forced to sue on the contract, (at least in Texas), the homeowner is going to recover all of his/her attorney's fees.
A homeowners policy is not a rocket science manual. It lists perils covered, it lists exclusions. Windstorm, people, has been covered since they expanded from fire only coverage
decades ago. There's no question about whether or not windstorm damage is covered. As sure as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, your homeowners policy has windstorm coverage.
Which raises the question.. did the influx of water originate from ground water.. or, was it infused into the house as a result of hurricane forced winds?
In the same vein, flood damage is explicitly excluded, and such has been upheld in even the screwiest of jurisdictions for years. I mean, it's a no-brainer.
In the same vein,... if a flood is caused by rising ground water, then the exclusion would apply. If however, a house is flooded as a result of a busted pipe under the house, then, is that type of flood damage covered?
All that is happening here is that plaintiffs attorney are out trying to squeeze any type of money they can for themselves from the hurricane tragedies of 2005. It's ridiculous. There's not a snowball's chance in hell of a judge making an insurance company cover flood damage in a homeowner's policy. A child prodigy will make a Badger-like space shuttle out of household items before flood damage is covered by a homeowner's policy.
That analogy is just greatness.
P.S. - It's also well-settled law that insurance agents don't have to go page-by-page and read the policy to the homeowner. Courts have always ruled that people can't just buy a policy, not read it, file a claim for something explicitly excluded, then get away with suing the agent. I mean, come on Lid, you're killing me here, dude. You know better. If anything, the attorneys filing these stupid suits and wasting everyone's time and money should have their licenses pulled.
Now, I didn't check to see if the homeowner filed suit... of if the insurance company filed suit under the Declaratory Judgments Act. If the ins. co. filed suit first and the court interprets the contract its way, it would be entitled to recover its attorney's fees from the homeowners.
Originally Posted by Widescreen
