Massachusetts property insurance law

Insured Gets The Short End Of The Insurance Coverage Stick For Parking Lot & Building Flooding

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has not been too kind to insureds these days. For the second time in 2 months, the SJC has upheld the denial of a property owner’s claim in connection with flooding, this time in the commercial setting.  In Surabian Realty Co. v. NGM Insurance Co., the Court ruled that a commercial property owner’s claim for flooding caused by a blocked parking lot catch basin was not covered under an “all risk” commercial/business insurance policy.

Blocked Drain

Surabian Realty owned an office building in Foxborough. During heavy rains in 2009, rainwater stopped flowing down the parking lot drain. The drain had become clogged with debris. Rainwater then ponded in the lot and seeped under the door of the building, flooding its lower level. The flooding caused damage to the carpeting, baseboards, and walls, totaling approximately $34,000.

Surabian made a claim under its “all risk” commercial insurance policy which had a special indorsement for this type of situation, which provided, “The most we will pay for loss or damage caused by water that backs up or overflows from a sewer, drain or sump is $25,000 for any one occurrence.” The insurance company, however, denied  the claim on the grounds that the flooding was still excluded from coverage as it was caused by “surface water.”

Court Rules For Insurance Company (Again)

The SJC took an electron microscope to the policy language, parsing the language almost to a fault and unfairly (in my opinion) against the insured. The Court held:

“Construing these clauses in combination, we interpret the insurance contract, as amended by the indorsement, to exclude damage caused by flood waters that spread over the surface of the ground without having entered a drain, but to cover damage caused by water that backed up after entering a drain.”

So basically, the court said that the rainwater has to actually enter the drain, then backup, while a blocked drain that doesn’t allow water to fall down the pipe won’t be covered. Um, ok…. A better rationale would have been that the claim wasn’t covered because maintaining and keeping the drain free of debris was really the responsibility of the insured property owner, not a risk that the insurance company assumed. But I’m not the judge.

This is also the second instance in the last few months where the Court has relied upon the policy’s “anti-concurrent” clause which excluded coverage where  the damage results from the combination of a covered peril and an excluded peril.

Lessons For Property Owners

Aside from making sure catch basins are cleaned, the tough lesson for property owners here is that your supposed “all risk” insurance policy isn’t really “all risk” as you probably perceive it. It seems that these days a lot of insurance claims are denied or insureds are scared of even making a claim lest they get cancelled by the insurance company. It’s a tough predicament.

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Richard D. Vetstein, Esq. is an experienced Massachusetts real estate and commercial insurance coverage attorney. For more information, please contact him at 508-620-5352 or [email protected].

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