First-party property claims are claims by policyholders under their own property coverage: homeowners, commercial property, and business owners policies. Catastrophe events, such as hail & windstorms, hurricanes & tornadoes, wildfire & mudslide, winter storms, and civil unrest, produce these claims in large numbers and at large values, often all at once. Mr. Bingham serves as a property insurance expert witness in these disputes, with reports written for both state and federal courts.
Disputes commonly turn on the scope and cost of the damage, whether it was caused by a covered peril, the application of exclusions & deductibles, the valuation of buildings, contents, and business personal property, the timing & amount of payments, and the business income lost while the property was being restored. When a policyholder alleges that the insurer’s handling was unreasonable, the dispute becomes a bad-faith claim as well as a contract claim.
When the parties agree that a loss is covered but disagree on its amount, the policy’s appraisal provision lets each side name an appraiser, with an umpire to decide what the appraisers cannot resolve. Mr. Bingham addresses two questions: whether appraisal is the appropriate remedy for the dispute at hand, and whether the appraisal provision was used as the policy intends: invoked for a disagreement over the amount of loss rather than coverage, at the right point in the claim, and carried through by appraisers and an umpire acting impartially.
Catastrophe claims also produce very large records: inspection reports, estimates, engineering & adjusting files, correspondence, and payment histories. Reading that record accurately is often the largest part of the analysis.
Business-interruption work outside litigation is described under Business Interruption Analysis.
