Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

As Texas and Louisiana brace for Hurricane Laura to make landfall, policyholders in the affected regions should be making last minute preparations to ensure their properties are covered in the storm’s wake.

A recent outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease has been traced to a Sheraton hotel in Atlanta, Georgia.  According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, 11 cases are confirmed and 55 more cases are “probable.”  The Atlanta Sheraton closed on July 15 to investigate the outbreak.  The closure is certain to result in a substantial immediate loss of revenue for the property.  The closure and loss of advanced reservations also will likely result in an extended interruption of hotel revenue.  Add to that potential stigma-related losses that will result from those afraid to reenter the property after the hotel reopens.  Sheraton will likely turn to its insurers to seek payment for its business interruption costs.

A federal appeals court reversed an auto parts manufacturer’s summary judgment win, construing a policy limitation on flood hazards to apply broadly to all types of losses, even though the limit “does not expressly say what losses it limits.” In Federal-Mogul LLC v. Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, manufacturer Federal-Mogul suffered more than $60 million in property and time-element losses following a 2011 flood in one of its factories in Thailand. Federal-Mogul submitted a claim to its insurer, but the insurer refused to pay more than $30 million because the flood occurred in a high hazard flood zone, to which the insurer argued a sublimit in the policy applied.

On October 7, 2016, an article by Hunton & Williams’ insurance lawyers Walter J. Andrews, Michael S. Levine and Andrea DeField, discussing insurance recovery options for those affected by Hurricane Matthew, was published in the Daily Business Review.  The full article is available here.  In the article, the authors discuss the types of coverage that may be available to affected policyholders and some of the pitfalls they should look out for as they mitigate their losses and navigate the claim process.  The authors can be contacted directly for follow up at wandrews@hunton.com ...

An article by Hunton lawyers Walter Andrews and Mike Levine, titled Insurance Planning for 2016: Top Ten Real Estate Liability Concerns, was recently published in the Spring 2016 issue of The Real Estate Finance Journal. The article addresses ten recurring liability concerns facing real estate professionals, investors, developers, lenders, owners and managers, and the associated insurance issues. The article addresses ways commercial insurance can be used to mitigate potential liability for those involved in complex real estate transactions. Andrews and Levine, along with ...