HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO SUBMIT A HURRICANE CLAIM?
HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO SUBMIT A HURRICANE CLAIM?
In Florida, you have 3 years after the hurricane first made landfall or the windstorm caused your damage to submit a claim. Florida Statute Section 627.70132 specifically provides as follows:
Notice of windstorm or hurricane claim.—A claim, supplemental claim, or reopened claim under an insurance policy that provides property insurance, as defined in s. 624.604, for loss or damage caused by the peril of windstorm or hurricane, is barred unless notice of the claim, supplemental claim, or reopened claim was given to the insurer in accordance with the terms of the policy within 3 years after the hurricane first made landfall or the windstorm caused the covered damage. For purposes of this section, the term “supplemental claim” or “reopened claim” means any additional claim for recovery from the insurer for losses from the same hurricane or windstorm which the insurer has previously adjusted pursuant to the initial claim. This section does not affect any applicable limitation on civil actions provided in s. 95.11 for claims, supplemental claims, or reopened claims timely filed under this section.
Based on this statute, if you have not submitted a claim for hurricane damage, you should do so immediately. If you have already submitted a claim and found new damage that was not originally discovered, the clock is ticking on submitting a supplemental claim. The statute is specific that you must submit your claim within 3 years after the hurricane first made landfall or the windstorm caused the damage. Hurricane Irma first hit landfall in Florida on September 10, 2017. Matthew first hit Florida on October 10, 2018, almost one year later. The statute spells out that claims are barred if the insurance company did not have notice of the claim, supplemental claim, or reopened claim within three years. Based on this, September 10, 2020, would be the deadline for Hurricane Irma claims and October 10, 2021, for claims from Hurricane Michael if you are using the date the hurricane made landfall in Florida.
The statute is not clear what is meant by “first made landfall” which could be interpreted two different ways. If you read the statute to mean that the date begins when the hurricane made landfall in the United States, then the above dates would be correct. If you read the statute to mean when it made landfall anywhere, that could change the deadline. For example, Hurricane Irma made landfall on September 8, 2017 on the island of Little Inagua in the Bahamas which is two days from when it made landfall in Florida. There are no cases interpreting this but I would imagine that Courts will interpret the statute to mean landfall in the United States. However, it would be a good policy to make sure you submit your claim well before the deadline so that you are not barred either way.
Note that the statue applies to a claim, meaning the original claim as well as supplemental or reopened claims. The statute defines “supplemental claim” and “reopened claim” to mean any additional claim for recovery from the insurance company for losses from the same hurricane that was the subject of the original claim. Many times, once a claim is submitted, the insurance adjuster will do his best to determine the full extent of the damage but things can be missed that don’t show up until the repair is started and actual destruction and remodeling takes place. Some additional damages don’t manifest themselves right away until later so the adjuster may never have had a chance to see them.
If you begin doing repairs and find additional damage, make sure you contact your insurance carrier right away. Be careful and make sure your insurance carrier does not try to place conditions on a supplemental claim which aren’t required in the policy. For example, some may attempt to require that any supplemental costs must be reviewed and approved before any additional costs are incurred. This may or may not be a condition in your policy. Each policy of insurance has within it a section known as Duties After Loss which spells out specifically what you as an insured must do after a loss. One of these duties is the duty of cooperation. If you place the insurance company on notice, give them a chance to see the new damage, document the new damage and then proceed with repairs so your project won’t be held up, some insurance companies will try to argue you failed to cooperate with them in getting pre-approval before continuing with repairs. If your policy does not require pre-approval, this would be an issue for a jury to decide if you actually failed to cooperate. If you have placed the insurance company on notice, given them a chance to inspect, they failed to do so, you documented the damage and allowed them access to the property whenever they requested, you would have a good argument that you did not breach the cooperation clause under your policy.
If you have a flood claim and not a windstorm claim, the rules are different. You must file a proof of loss within 60 days after the date of loss. If your claim has been under paid or denied, you can file an appeal with FEMA but it must be done within 60 days from the date of the payment or denial letter. If you need to file suit over the denial, you must do so within one year. Therefore, if you believe you have a supplemental claim, you need to act fast to get this in.
If you have any questions regarding your windstorm claim, supplemental claim or how to reopen your original claim, gives us a call at Christopher Ligori & Associates for a free claims and/or policy review. If you believe you have not been paid enough or you found additional damages, don’t ignore it because if certain deadlines run out, you will not be able to get those damages paid for.