Vendor Richie Kidwell center stage
Another big filer of lawsuits against Florida insurance companies has lost a court case that is being called significant in its expected impact on Assignment of Benefits (AOB) cases; it’s the same plaintiff that has had to withdraw the last of his series of lawsuits against the state for its insurance marketplace reforms; plus, why an “inconsequential technicality” can’t stop a claim payment. It’s all in this week’s Legal Briefs.
Not Covered: Richie Kidwell of the Orlando-based Kidwell Group and Air Quality Assessors has lost his most recent case among the thousands he’s filed against Florida insurance companies, this one against People’s Trust Insurance. It was a Hurricane Irma roofing claim and the carrier had paid $30,000 to put a new roof on the house and more. But there was a public adjuster involved and an Assignment of Benefits (AOB) contract that included Kidwell and so he had an engineering report done, even though the roof repairers never used it.
People’s Trust refused to pay the $3,500 for the report saying its cost was not covered under the policy because it “is not a physical loss to the property and is akin to a consulting fee.” It also argued that the report was “not a cost to repair or replace covered property.” The Fourth District Court of Appeal agreed in late June, overturning a trial court decision, writing “the trial court should have granted the insurer’s motion for a directed verdict,” according to the 4th DCA opinion.
People’s Trust counsel Joshua Beck said the case may help finally end the market practice of billing for unneeded engineering reports in AOB roof claims. “This has become a real cottage industry. The carriers get more lawsuits from AQA Kidwell than pretty much anybody else,” Beck told PropertyCasualty360. “So while the amount involved was not substantial – it’s a $3,500 engineer report – but when you take into consideration that these are being done across the board, typically through the public adjuster, referring it to AQA to get an engineer’s report in exchange for the insured just assigning away their rights, it’s something that really has to be aggressively challenged.” You can read more about the pervasiveness of these cases in the Insurance Journal.
Richie Kidwell
Kidwell Loses Again: Besides having a mold detection business, Kidwell is president of the nonprofit Florida Restoration Association of independent contractors. Together they filed a federal lawsuit and three state court lawsuits, as we’ve reported over the past two years. Among their complaints was that the legislature’s 2021 and 2022 Solicitation & Litigation Reform and Consumer Protections violate free-speech rights, unfairly target roofers, and are “unduly burdensome.” After the three state lawsuits were dismissed on appeal earlier this year, the federal lawsuit was dismissed as well in late May.
The Sunken Yacht: A federal appeals court has affirmed a district court decision that Travelers Insurance must pay the $2 million policy limit on a 92-foot long yacht that was totaled in Pompano Beach during 2017’s hurricane Irma. The carrier had refused to pay because the yacht’s owner didn’t have a full-time captain aboard as required by a warranty included in the insurance policy. But the court ruled that Florida’s “anti-technical statute” doesn’t allow an inconsequential technicality to stand in the way of paying a claim. You can read more in the Claims Journal.
LMA Newsletter of 7-10-23
