An article written by Matthew Sellers, “Can an insurance coverage service reject a home-owner’s declare whether it is late?” seems barely deceptive relating to the Colorado Supreme Court docket case, famous in The Doom and Gloom Assumes a Costume of Plume—The Insurance coverage Business Must Cease Being So Unfavorable and Watch Out for Its Clients. Sellers wrote:

[T]he Supreme Court docket of Colorado prolonged the appliance of the notice-prejudice rule to occurrence-based first-party owners’ insurance coverage insurance policies. This rule requires an insurer to reveal that it was prejudiced by the insured’s late discover of a declare earlier than denying protection based mostly on the untimeliness of the declare. This marks a departure from the normal strategy that allowed insurers to disclaim claims based mostly on late discover with out proving prejudice.

…

This growth underscores the dynamic nature of insurance coverage legislation and the potential for authorized precedents to evolve. Insurance coverage professionals ought to keep knowledgeable about authorized tendencies and regulatory modifications that would have an effect on coverage language, claims processing, and the general insurance coverage market.

If I didn’t know higher, studying this text implies that the Colorado Supreme Court docket did one thing completely different from the vast majority of different states. In reality, only some states apply the draconian forfeiture rule, as defined by insurance coverage legislation professor Johnny Parker in his article, The Position of Prejudice in Resolving Insurance coverage Situation Clause Disputes: The Good, The Unhealthy, & The Ugly. ¹

Colorado adopted the identical rule because the overwhelming majority of states that use the discover prejudice rule, which Professor Parker famous is “the first device utilized by courts to resolve insurance coverage disputes that come up out of an insured’s failure to adjust to a situation clause.” Parker then labeled the three strategies or guidelines as the great, dangerous, or ugly:

These classifications are based mostly on a number of variables consisting of: (1) whether or not the unfairness rule has been adopted; (2) the extent to which it has been utilized to situation provisions apart from discover circumstances; (3) categorical restrictions or limitations on the appliance of the unfairness rule; and (4) who has the burden of proving or disproving prejudice.

Part II.C concludes {that a} majority of jurisdictions require insurers to show that they have been truly prejudiced by the insured’s noncompliance. In jurisdictions labeled nearly as good, the legislation is characterised by: (1) recognition of the rule’s applicability to most, if not all, situation provisions; (2) absence of categorical restrictions on increasing the doctrine’s software; and (3) allocation of the burden of proof on the insurer.

In jurisdictions labeled as dangerous, prejudice jurisprudence is restricted in its software to 2 or fewer situation provisions. The legislation in these jurisdictions additionally expressly acknowledges that the rule shouldn’t be relevant past particular situation provisions and/ or particular varieties of insurance policies. Lots of the jurisdictions whose legislation is classed as dangerous additionally allocate the burden of disproving prejudice to the insured, thus recognizing a presumption of prejudice in favor of the insurer.

In jurisdictions labeled as ugly, the legislation continues to stick to the strict or literal interpretation strategy to resolving insurance coverage contract disputes. These jurisdictions have interaction within the conventional situation precedent/situation subsequent evaluation, which favors the drafter of the coverage. Consequently, if the situation constitutes a situation precedent, which in most situations it’s going to, or expresses the results of an insured’s failure to conform, protection is void no matter whether or not the insurer was prejudiced.

Parker famous that solely 5 jurisdictions, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, use the forfeiture rule, which insurance coverage firm attorneys have been unsuccessfully arguing for within the current Colorado case. Professor Parker additional commented on how a lot criticism this rule of legislation and instances have acquired:

It’s also worthy of observe that the legislation in these jurisdictions has been totally repudiated and rejected by a majority of jurisdictions. It has been deserted by the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions that initially adopted it.

If there’s a development, it will be a problem to after which a change of the legislation in these 5 remaining jurisdictions nonetheless following the antiquated forfeiture rule.

In case you are deeply within the growth of this space of insurance coverage legislation, Professor Parker’s work is a wonderful evaluation.

Thought For The Day

The distinction between the just about proper phrase and the best phrase is basically a big matter—it’s the distinction between the lightning bug and the lightning.
—Mark Twain

¹ Johnny Parker, The Position of Prejudice in Resolving Insurance coverage Situation Clause Disputes: The Good, The Unhealthy, & The Ugly, 47 U. Mem. L. Rev. 779 (2017).