Attorneys Should Avoid Any ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Approach in Texas Winter Storm Claims

By Kenneth Artz and Mark Moore | March 17, 2021 | Law.com | Texas Lawyers Father John Szatkowski of St. Paul The Apostle Church sweeps water from a broken water line out of his church in Richardson, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021. Father Szatkowski and his staff found the flooding as they prepared for Ash Wednesday services. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) The insurance industry is processing an unprecedented amount of claims following the brutal winter storm that slammed through most of Texas last month, says Bruce Wilkin, a partner in the Houston office of Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton LLP where he represents clients at both the trial and appellate level in commercial, energy, environmental, and first-party insurance disputes. “Several adjusters have equated this to a major hurricane hitting every major town in Texas on the same day,” Wilkin said. “As a result, insurers have likely adopted an “all hands on deck” approach to try and cover the onslaught of claims.” What this means for attorneys representing insurance and corporate clients is that they will have a significant impact upon the claims process, he predicted. “Due to the sheer number of claims, an attorney’s guidance may impact numerous claims as they appear to concern similar, if not identical, issues,” Wilkin said. “However, all claims professionals and attorneys know that every building and its response to damage-causing events is different, which makes every claim different.” “In mass casualty events like this, there is an inclination to attempt a one-size-fits-all approach, but that often proves difficult to see through, particularly in larger commercial losses,” he added. Attorneys should be thinking about both the big and small issues that their clients are addressing, he added. Coverage attorneys should be preparing to answer the unique coverage issues presented in these claims, says Wilkin. “It all depends on the policy’s wording, and most policies have specific provisions that address coverage (or lack thereof) for frozen pipe bursts, civil authority decisions, and electric and water service interruptions,” he explained. “Older piping has experienced greater failure rates than newer piping (ex: galvanized v. PVC), so policy provisions addressing corrosion, rust, etc. may be implicated.” “In addition, leading up to the freeze, many insureds were in the throes of a major business downturn due to COVID, which many jurisdictions have held is not covered, so a business interruption loss measurement from the freeze claims may need to consider the impact of COVID, as there may be a mix of covered and uncovered causes of the business interruption loss,” he added. Insurers and corporate clients will see the claims process play out over the next three to six months, public adjusters and policyholder lawyers engaged in the six to 12-month range, and then the slew of lawsuits will begin, predicts Wilkin. “If this is anything like Hurricane Ike, you’ll also see an onslaught of lawsuits filed near the two-year anniversary of when the freeze(s) began, so the state’s e-filing systems should get ready for Valentine’s Day 2023,” he said. Texas Counties Qualifying for FEMA Assistance (Updated 3/11/21) Per ALM Intelligence analyst Mark Moore: FEMA has added 18 Texas counties to the original list of 108 that qualify for assistance as previously published (new counties highlighted with a blue circle). As a recap, according to the FEMA site, “disaster assistance may include financial assistance for temporary lodging and home repairs, low-interest loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.” Requests for federal assistance are to supplement insurance claims, which requestors must file with their carriers as soon as possible. Read full article at here. The post Attorneys Should Avoid Any ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Approach in Texas Winter Storm Claims appeared first on Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton, LLP.

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