Insurance slabbed

Insurance slabbed: "Two weeks after Katrina, State Farm issued a memorandum that instructed its adjusters that “[w]here wind acts concurrently with flooding to cause damage to the insured property, coverage for the loss exists only under flood coverage, if available.”

State Farm took the most extreme position among the insurance companies in Mississippi, and insisted that the Anti-Concurrent Causation language in its policies excluded coverage of all wind damage wherever flooding contributed to the loss, regardless of the sequence of wind and flood damage. Thus, under State Farm’s interpretation, wind damage that would have been covered could suddenly become excluded if flooding occurred several hours later.
One week after Katrina, Mississippi Commissioner of Insurance George Dale issued a bulletin advising insurance companies that they had to prove that a loss was caused by flooding in order to deny wind coverage. State Farm and other companies ignored the bulletin and the Department of Insurance did little to enforce it."