One warning I present to audiences when discussing insurance coverage contract interpretation is that normal guidelines could have state exceptions and that coverage language could impression these state exceptions. An instance is that appraisers can’t be retained on a contingent charge. I recite this rule whereas talking about appraisal and all the time warn that a number of states enable the other.
In Hozlock v.Donegal Firms/Donegal Mut. Ins. Co., 1 a Pennsylvania court docket dominated in a case of first impression that appraisers could possibly be retained and paid on a contingent foundation. Nevertheless, the court docket made this additional notice, warning that coverage language may end in a distinct consequence:
We notice that if Appellant so desired, it may have explicitly contracted for utterly impartial appraisers. It didn’t. The truth is…which mandates sure provisions in fireplace insurance coverage insurance policies, requires that such insurance policies embody a clause offering for third social gathering appraisal when the events disagree on the worth of a loss. The statute units out a inventory paragraph offering for such appraisal, which insurance coverage corporations are required to make use of of their insurance policies. This inventory paragraph incorporates the particular language that events’ appointed appraisers be ‘competent and disinterested.’ … The appraisal clause in Appellant’s coverage merely requires the appraisers to be competent. Appellant was required by statute to make use of the code’s inventory language. It selected not to take action.
Saying that Pennsylvania is a state that enables appraisers to be retained on a contingent charge is simply partially right. Primarily based on the case holding, it will be extra correct to say that Pennsylvania is a state the place, relying on particular coverage language, an appraiser could possibly be employed on a contingent foundation as an exception to the overall rule adopted in almost each jurisdiction that prohibits the apply.
Thought For The Day
Stand up, get up, Arise to your rights. Stand up, get up, Don’t hand over the combat.
—Bob Marley
1 Hozlock v. Donegal Firms/Donegal Mut. Ins. Co., 745 A.2nd 1261 (Penn. Superior Ct. 2000).