I’ve tried and litigated property insurance coverage instances throughout the nation. Whereas each jurisdiction has its quirks, Texas continues to tell apart itself as more and more unforgiving the place element is more and more essential. Texas property insurance coverage instances are being determined much less on “what occurred” and extra on whether or not the policyholder’s staff dotted each procedural “i” and crossed each evidentiary “t.”
The latest Fifth Circuit choice in H5R LLC v. Scottsdale Insurance coverage Firm is one other textbook instance of this development. 1 It’s not a case the place the court docket definitively discovered there was no hail harm. It’s not even a case the place the court docket concluded the insurer’s causation concept was essentially right. As a substitute, it’s a case through which the policyholder misplaced resulting from pleading selections, expert-proof gaps, and timing mismatches that proved deadly below Texas and Fifth Circuit procedural guidelines.
H5R owned a house that had been insured by Scottsdale below a collection of annual renewal insurance policies starting in late 2018. A declare for roof harm was finally made in 2021. Scottsdale acknowledged hail harm existed, however denied the declare on the grounds that the harm predated the reported loss and coverage interval.
On attraction, H5R argued that hail had occurred throughout earlier Scottsdale coverage durations and that abstract judgment ought to by no means have been granted. The Fifth Circuit disagreed and affirmed judgment for the insurer. However the court docket’s reasoning is what ought to command consideration.
One of many decisive elements within the case was not climate information or roof images. It was the policyholder’s pleading. H5R’s criticism alleged breach of a selected renewal coverage starting in December 2020. But a lot of the hail proof relied upon by the policyholder pointed to hail occasions in 2019 and 2020, earlier than that renewal interval started.
Underneath Texas regulation, every renewal coverage is handled as a separate and distinct contract. That doctrinal rule, mixed with federal procedural regulation, proved decisive. The Fifth Circuit held {that a} policyholder can not successfully introduce new breach of contract claims for earlier coverage durations on the abstract judgment stage if these claims have been by no means pleaded.
In different phrases, proof of hail throughout earlier years didn’t matter as a result of the pleaded contract declare didn’t cowl these years. This isn’t a “gotcha” rule invented by the court docket. It’s well-established Texas regulation. However H5R serves for instance of how unforgiving courts have turn into in making use of it, and the must be exacting when reviewing a concept of protection with dates of protection correctly raised.
If a Texas property insurance coverage case includes a number of renewals, and most do, policyholder counsel and public adjusters should elevate these in writing early on or threat dropping in any other case legitimate claims on purely procedural grounds.
The second main lesson from H5R issues professional testimony and causation. Texas courts more and more demand that causation opinions do greater than say, “This harm seems like hail.” Consultants should have the ability to tie the harm to a selected storm or storms that occurred through the operative coverage interval. They have to have the ability to exclude different believable time frames.
In H5R, even assuming the policyholder’s professional testimony had been admitted in full, the professional couldn’t say when the hail harm occurred. He conceded it might have occurred years earlier. That concession alone doomed the causation ingredient.
This displays a broader sample in Texas property insurance coverage litigation. Courts anticipate policyholders and public adjusters to show not solely causation but in addition temporal causation, exactly aligned with protection durations. Generalized opinions about “hail harm over time” are now not enough. Courts need dates, storms, climate information, and exclusion of non-covered durations.
H5R additionally highlights one other recurring lure requiring professional designation and disclosure compliance. The policyholder’s professional was excluded, partially, as a result of he was not correctly designated to testify about when hail harm occurred. The Fifth Circuit upheld that ruling and emphasised that, even when exclusion have been error, it was innocent as a result of the professional nonetheless couldn’t set up timing inside the coverage interval.
Texas federal courts strictly implement professional disclosure guidelines, and appellate courts are reluctant to reverse these rulings absent clear prejudice. Policyholder attorneys should assume that each designation, report, and opinion will likely be scrutinized for technical compliance and that courts is not going to rescue events from sloppy or incomplete disclosures.
Further-Contractual Claims Are Solely as Robust because the Contract Declare
As soon as the breach of contract declare failed, H5R’s extra-contractual claims fell with it. That result’s in keeping with Texas jurisprudence, which more and more requires a viable declare for coverage advantages as a prerequisite to most unhealthy religion and statutory claims.
This reinforces a sensible fact: in Texas, extra-contractual claims usually are not security nets. They’re extensions of the contract declare. If protection fails, they normally fail too.
Why Public Adjusters Ought to Care Deeply About This Case
Public adjusters in Texas ought to learn H5R rigorously and take it severely. Public adjusters are sometimes the primary professionals to form a declare’s narrative. If storm dates usually are not recognized early, if meteorological assist just isn’t obtained, and if harm just isn’t correlated to particular coverage durations, the declare could also be fatally weakened earlier than litigation ever begins. Texas claims more and more require meteorologists, engineers, and consultants who can determine particular storm occasions, match harm patterns to these occasions, exclude non-covered time durations, align findings with the precise coverage interval at subject, and assist proofs of loss that match the protection durations.
This isn’t tutorial. Claims are being misplaced on these particulars.
H5R v. Scottsdale is an element of a bigger development. Texas property insurance coverage litigation has turn into a precision follow. Pleadings, professional opinions, disclosures, and timelines should all align completely. This doesn’t imply policyholders can not win in Texas. It does imply that Texas calls for a stage of procedural self-discipline that exceeds many different jurisdictions. Attorneys and public adjusters who fail to respect that actuality accomplish that at their purchasers’ peril.
Insurance coverage firms perceive these guidelines very properly. Policyholders should match that sophistication or threat dropping instances which may in any other case have been gained on the deserves.
Thought For The Day
“The distinction between one thing good and one thing nice is consideration to element.”
— Charles R. Swindoll
1 H5R, L.L.C. v. Scottsdale Ins. Co., No 25-10533, 2026 WL 252653 (fifth Cir. Jan. 30, 2026). See additionally, transient of H5R and transient of Scottsdale Insurance coverage.