Citizens Promises to Pay Slabbed Claims—Will Other Insurers Agree to Do the Same?

Slabbed claims are Hurricane losses where the only thing left is the foundation slab. We started calling these claims “slabbed losses” after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. I devoted an entire 2008 blog post to the topic in Slabbed:

My collegues and I coined a new term in 2004, following Hurricane Ivan. We became co-counsel with the prominent Pensacola firm of Levin, Papatonio, Thomas, Echner & Proctor. They brought a brilliant attorney, Bobby Loehr, out of semi-retirement to work with me on their insurance claim litigation. We referred to hurricane cases where nothing was left of our clients homes or businesses as “slab cases.” It was an important legal designation because of the anti-concurrent causation issues and the then applicable Florida Valued Policy Laws. Upon my arrival in Mississippi just following Katrina, it was obvious to me the same litigation was going to ensue; there were thousands of “slab” cases. We actually noted these cases because they generally had the most significant damage and the most unresolved legal questions.

Jay Adams from Citizens Property Insurance says his company is going to pay Hurricane Ian slabbed claims in the video above:

[F]or Citizens policyholders, if there is a slab left behind on Sanibel island, we are going to pay for wind damage and cover that loss if there is no determination that surge caused the loss. The reason I say this is that I don’t believe anybody has photographic evidence of the surge vs. the wind – did the wind blow it down and the surge carried it away? Did the surge knock it down and the Wind come behind it… 150 mph winds on the island, or more…. we have made a decision in those scenarios if we can’t determine, we will pay the claim. I don’t know of any other carrier doing that.

I wonder if other insurers will agree to do the same.

Thought For The Day

A new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man’s heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree.
—George H. W. Bush