Our client owned a hotel that was severely damaged by fire. After he submitted a claim to his insurance company, his claim was denied after the insurance company accused him of making false representations on the insurance application. The insurance company then rescinded his policy without tendering the full insurance premium that he had paid.
We sued the insurance company in federal court, and fought hard for two and a half years, including filing several motions to compel the production of the insurance company’s underwriting guidelines. We proved that the insurance company did not request the application that allegedly contained false statements until after the fire, and did not rely on any statements made in the application. We also proved that any alleged misrepresentations in the application were not material because the insurance company would still have issued the policy at the same premium. We recovered $485,000.00 for our client.