Re: [A/S] Hail damage - insurance claim

[John P Sargeant <sargeant@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's that terrible phrase, "actual cash value". It has been variously
interpreted as the depreciated value of the item or it's used price.
What is the used price of the skin of Hunter's trailer----or perhaps
more properly what is the price of a trailer of like kind and quality
without the hail dents, versus what is the price of her trailer with the
hail dents. The difference is what it looks like is covered if the
Foremost interprets the policy according to the fine letter of the
wording. So if her used trailer is worth say $35,000 without hail dents
and $32,000 with dents the difference , $3000, is the amount of coverage
available. I'm not certain that the amount they will pay is the cost of
repair up to the difference or they will just pay the difference and let
Hunter figure out how to get it repaired for that price. Seems mighty
ambiguous.
There is a principal of contract law that is called contra preferendum.
It means that the party who writes the contract is responsible to
compensate the party who agrees to the contract, if there is an
ambiguity. The ambiguity will be found against the party who writes the
contract. It's been repeatedly held that if an insurance company screws
up the wording and there is something that could give its insured a
better deal, the insured gets the "better deal". You might suggest to
the Foremost, that their wording is ambiguous and therefore you should
have the cost of repair, not the difference in actual cash value.
By the way, this limitation on damage by hail is obviously there because
Foremost has had some sad experience in the past with replacing hail
damaged panels on RV's. I would expect that most SOB's are clad in any
assortment of formed aluminum or fibreglass panels and matching the
damaged to the undamaged, could be in some cases impossible, which would
mean that you'd have to redo the whole RV just to get the panels to
match. Not so with the A/S. It's all good flat metal and one piece of
panel material is about the same finish as the other. The wording for
hail damage on a car or truck, I'm willing to guess, has no such
limitation and the same should apply to trailers.
This should be of some bargaining power in negotiating with the insurer.
They only have to do the damaged panels, not the whole trailer. Rejoice
and pay.
Hope these are some arrows for your quiver, Hunter.
--

                  John P Sargeant