Our client’s home was severely damaged because of the vibrations and underground shock waves caused by nearby bridge construction. This type of damage is often covered by your homeowners insurance. This is true even if the insurance policy has an exclusion for “earth movement.” (Those exclusions typically only exclude naturally occurring earth movement, not man-made earth movement.)
In this case, the insurance company hired an engineering firm (which we have seen on literally 100’s of our cases) to investigate the loss. Not surprisingly, the engineering firm wrote a lenghty report which just happened to conclude that the home was damaged as a result of causes that just happened to be excluded by the insurance policy.
Contrary to the engineers conclusion, the damage was caused by the bridge construction and is a covered loss. As a result of the denial, we filed a breach of contract lawsuit against the homeowners insurance company.
Two important things I want you to remember.
First, the insurance company’s “no” is not the end of the inquiry, it is just the beginning. DO NOT be intimidated by the insurance company’s “no.” Believe it or not, their “no” is the one thing I have to have in order to win an insurance case. Every insurance denial case I’ve ever won has one thing in common…they all started with “no.”
Second, in most of our insurance cases if we win the insurance company must pay our fees and costs, and if we lose, we’ll work for free.