Insurance Law

Mr. Ward has represented individuals, corporations, and governmental entities against insurance companies in a variety of coverage issues and bad faith cases. He has been successful in obtaining policy benefits for insureds and in obtaining additional consequential damages for insurance “bad-faith” conduct. Mr. Ward has also represented insurance companies, insurance agents and brokers in the past. Because of this, he is familiar with common insurance company litigation practices and tactics, and can respond accordingly.


He has litigated insurance policy disputes and insurance bad faith cases involving:


  • Builder’s risk policies
  • Business and income loss policies
  • Comprehensive general liability
  • Property damage
  • Fire loss
  • Water loss
  • Surplus lines policies
  • Many other areas


Some of the more significant cases handled by Attorney Ward in recent years involved fire losses at hotels and subsequent bad faith denial, or inadequate payment of insurance proceeds to the insured. He has successfully fought through Motions for Summary Judgment, Arbitration, Appraisals, and Jury Trials to win huge verdicts for our clients. If you are facing litigation with your insurance company and would like a free consultation, please contact our office and he will be happy to meet with you.


Jury Awards Verdict of Over $7.5 Million Dollars


A Brawley jury returned a verdict in excess of $7.5 million dollars against Smith-Kandal Insurance Agency for its professional negligence in failing to provide proper insurance coverage for the Planters Hotel. After an 8-week trial, a civil jury found in favor of the owner of the Planters Hotel, Mr. Allen Earley, Trustee of the Allen Earley 1998 Family Trust. 


The historic Planters Hotel was a landmark structure that had stood on the town square in the heart of Brawley since the 1920’s but was tragically destroyed by fire in March of 2007. At the time of the fire, the Planters Hotel was covered by a $3.1 million insurance policy with Chubb Custom Insurance Company. Mr. Earley had obtained the policy through Henry “Hank” Kuiper, an agent employed by Smith-Kandal. A claim was promptly submitted, but it was denied by Chubb based on exclusionary policy language regarding “protective safeguards” and Mr. Earley was left without any insurance coverage whatsoever for the total loss of the Hotel.


Mr. Earley sued Chubb for breach of contract and bad faith denial of the claim. During the course of discovery, it was learned that Smith-Kandal had made a number of serious mistakes and badly mishandled the insurance coverage for the Planters Hotel. One of the more momentous discoveries was the fact that just a few months before the fire, representative of Chubb Insurance had done an inspection of the hotel and had sent an email with its findings and recommendations to Smith-Kandal but that this information was NOT forwarded on to Mr. Earley. Significantly, this email notified Smith-Kandal that the Hotel was “very much underinsured” and included a cost estimate showing the actual reconstruction costs would be in excess of $6.2 million. Based on this reconstruction cost estimate, Chubb offered to increase the limits of the policy to an amount in line with the true value of the property. In breach of its duties, Smith-Kandal failed to notify Mr. Earley of the fact that the hotel was “very much underinsured” and did not ever communicate Chubb’s offer to increase the limits to $6.2 million.


The email also attached two reports, which included certain “recommendations” specifically addressing issues relating to the “protective safeguards.” The text of the email referenced the attached recommendations and stated that they “need to be complied with.” Once again however, the evidence showed that Smith-Kandal failed to forward these recommendations and did not advise Mr. Earley regarding the contents of the email or the findings in the reports.  Instead of forwarding this email and discussing the issues with Mr. Earley, Smith-Kandal on its own advised Chubb NOT to increase the limits and actually agreed to change the policy from the superior Replacement Cost (RC) coverage to the lesser coverage afforded under Actual Cash Value (ACV). As a result of this, instead of getting $6.2 million as an RC benefit, Mr. Earley was faced with an outright coverage denial by Chubb based on his failure to comply with the “recommendations” that were never forwarded to him; he was limited to a maximum recovery of $3.1 million based on the inadequate limits; and his recovery was reduced under the inferior ACV method of valuation which Chubb argued was actually less than $2 million.


In the later part of 2009, Mr. Earley reached an out-of-court settlement with Chubb Custom Insurance but proceeded to trial as against the Smith-Kandal Insurance Agency. At the end of a civil trial that lasted approximately 2 months, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Mr. Earley in the amount of $7,553,559.  After applying credits for the prior settlement reached with Chubb, a net judgment against Smith-Kandall was entered.


While pleased with the jury’s verdict, Mr. Earley states that it still does not fully make up for the damage done to his life and the local business community: “If Smith-Kandal had simply done its job and forwarded that critical email, I would have had the funds needed to immediately begin rebuilding on the Planters site and that money would have gone back into the local economy and created jobs and opportunities at a time when the community could really have used a little help – instead, I had to endure a 3 year legal battle to protect my rights while the whole time on the brink of personal financial ruin.”


Insurance Company Is Forced to Pay the Cost to Rebuild Hotel


Attorney Ward represented the owners of a new hotel in the Hesperia area that burned during the late stages of construction. The insurer delayed making any payments for approximately 10 months and then only offered an amount which was less than the full reconstruction costs and damages incurred by the insured/owner. Litigation was commenced to make the owners whole by obtaining the full measure of policy benefits to reconstruct the hotel and consequential bad-faith damages for lost business income.


Peter Ward was successful in obtaining a substantial seven-figure payment from the insurer within a short period after being retained and thereafter argued the case through the policy’s appraisal process and obtained an award of over $760,000. Finally, Mr. Ward also obtained additional settlement payments from the carrier through a confidential settlement of the bad faith claim reached after mediation conducted before Justice Howard Wiener (Ret.)

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