Floor Water Revisited

An insured suffered extreme water harm to the inside of the second flooring of a dwelling. A heavy rain storm precipitated water to build up on a second flooring deck which seeped into the inside of the construction. The owners insurer has denied protection primarily based on the exclusion for ‘floor water.’ The insured is arguing that ‘floor water’ refers back to the accumulation of water on the bottom, not 12 ft above it. Who’s proper?

Query:

‘Our insured suffered extreme water harm on the second flooring of the inside of his dwelling. A heavy rain storm precipitated water to build up on a second flooring deck which seeped into the inside of the construction. The owners insurer has denied protection primarily based on the exclusion for ‘floor water.’ The insured is arguing that ‘floor water’ refers back to the accumulation of water on the bottom, not 12 ft above it. The corporate disagrees.’

Reply:

One of the crucial frequent questions obtained by our ‘Ask an Skilled’ service offers with floor water. In response to a number of such questions, we revealed the next article that you just would possibly discover useful along with the VU college feedback beneath:

‘Floor Water…What Is It?’

College Response

Take a look at an earlier VU article (see above) which is great and complete. One thought…within the Crocker case cited in IRMI, the patio was floor degree. Within the on the spot case, the patio is on the second degree. I feel that distinction would possibly distinguish this case from Crocker and related antagonistic choices.

College Response

Floor water seems to be a geologic time period for water amassing on the bottom:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

College Response

I don’t imagine that is ‘floor’ water.

College Response

I might say the deck is ‘floor’ and could be excluded underneath the floor water exclusion.

Was this ISO’s intent? I don’t know.

If the harm was solely to private property, except there was open peril (all danger), then there isn’t any protection due to the reason for loss wording.

2. Windstorm Or Hail

This peril consists of loss to watercraft of every kind and their trailers, furnishings, gear, and outboard engines or motors, solely whereas inside a completely enclosed constructing.

This peril doesn’t embrace loss to the property contained in a constructing attributable to rain, snow, sleet, sand or mud except the direct power of wind or hail damages the constructing inflicting a gap in a roof or wall and the rain, snow, sleet, sand or mud enters by way of this opening.

The AAIS Owners wording could be very related.

College Response

I don’t understand how water on a second story deck might be thought-about ‘floor water.’ That’s ludicrous on its face.

College Response

The argument is that the deck is a ‘floor’ and that the exclusion doesn’t say ‘water on the floor of the earth/floor.’ I feel it needs to be positioned in context with the remainder of the exclusion which lists sources of water that each one originate from the floor of the earth. There are a few authorized ideas described in a number of VU articles that say that an undefined time period takes the overall which means of the opposite phrases within the phrase/exclusion. To study extra, go to the VU and seek for ‘ejusdem generis’ and also you’ll discover a number of articles to help the premise that ‘floor’ water refers to water accumulating on the floor of the earth.

College Response

Water goes to be on the floor of one thing, whether or not it’s a tree, a roof, a gutter, a frog…take your choose. Gravity sees to that. The courtroom choices virtually uniformly level to ‘floor’ as which means ‘floor of the bottom,’ and so they make grudging exceptions for roadways, parking tons, and patios which might be arbitrarily near the floor of the bottom. I haven’t seen anybody say that one thing on the second story of a constructing is now, immediately, by some means the identical sort of ‘floor’ that goes with the time period ‘floor water.’ The reductio argument turns into one through which all rain or rain water is excluded as a result of it doesn’t do something till it hits a floor.

College Response

You didn’t point out what was broken. There’s no protection for private property as a result of this wasn’t one of many named perils. Injury to the constructing needs to be lined, although. It’s effectively established that ice harm losses to roofs (the place water backs up underneath the shingles and damages the inside of the construction) is roofed. That definitely entails water from the floor of the roof coming into the constructing and it’s simply as definitely not excluded by the ‘floor water’ exclusion. That’s due to the context through which the time period ‘floor water’ is discovered. It’s discovered with phrases like flood, waves, and tidal water…all phrases that contain water on the floor OF THE EARTH (versus the floor of one thing else).

College Response

What was broken? If it was structural then the floor water exclusion ought to apply as a result of the water collected above the floor of the earth. If the harm was to private property, there’s no protection except the construction is first breached.

College Response

Quite a few courts have discovered that ‘floor water’ means water on the floor of the bottom, not on the roof or an elevated floor like a balcony:

‘[N]atural precipitation approaching and passing over the floor of the bottom….’

‘Floor waters are generally understood to be waters on the floor of the bottom, often created by rain or snow….’

‘ ’Floor’ water could also be outlined as water on the floor of the bottom….’

‘Floor waters are these falling upon, arising from, and naturally spreading over lands produced by rainfall, melting snow, or springs.’

College Response

The ‘Policyholder’s Information to the Legislation of Insurance coverage Protection’ By Peter J. Kalis, Thomas M. Reiter, James R. Segerdahl has a short, however fairly good, dialogue of the floor water exclusion discovered in lots of insurance coverage insurance policies. It offers an instance of a standard courtroom definition of ‘floor water’:

Floor waters are these falling upon, arising from, and naturally spreading over lands produced by rainfall, melting snow, or spring. They continued to be floor waters till, in obedience to the legal guidelines of gravity, they percolate by way of the bottom or circulation vagrantly over the floor of the land into effectively outlined watercourses or strains. [emphasis added]

In line with the dialogue by Kalis, most courts have held that water on the roofs of buildings doesn’t represent floor water:

McCorkle v. Penn Mut. Fireplace Ins. Co., Florida Court docket of Appeals, 1968

American Ins. Co. v. Visitor Printing Co., Georgia Court docket of Appeals, 1966

Aetna Ins. Co. V. Walker, Georgia Court docket of Appeals, 1967

Cochran v. Vacationers Ins. Co., Louisiana Court docket of Appeals, 1992.

Some a lot older choices, nevertheless, have held that water on the roof of a constructing is floor water:

McCullough v. Hartpence, New Jersey, 1948

Bringhurst v. O’Connell, Delaware, 1924

Final Up to date: December 18, 2009