The lawsuit lottery: Katrina style

From USA Today...

The Broussards sued State Farm for refusing to pay for any damage to their home, which Katrina reduced to a slab. The couple, who wanted State Farm to pay for the full insured value of their home plus $5 million in punitive damages, claimed that a tornado during the hurricane destroyed their home. State Farm blamed all the damage on Katrina's storm surge.

State Farm and other insurers say their homeowner policies cover damage from wind but not from water, and that the policies exclude damage that could have been caused by a combination of both, even if hurricane-force winds preceded a storm's rising water.

Senter, however, ruled that State Farm couldn't prove that Katrina's storm surge was responsible for all of the damage to the Broussards' home. The judge also said the testimony failed to establish how much damage was caused by wind and how much resulted from storm surge.

Insurance is all about gambling, on both parts. You decide how much you want to pay in premiums balanced against what coverage you get, and the insurance decides how much they'll charge based on what coverage they'll provide. The odds of the "event" occurring are a major factor in determining how much the premiums need to be. The plaintiffs in this case chose, CHOSE lower premiums for less coverage, then when Katrina hit, went whining to the courts to force the insurance company to pay when their policy specifically did not cover that event. 

The jury simply applied the lawsuit lottery mentality, and gleefully awarded the plaintiff millions in future premiums that these idiots themselves may well have to pay.

The millions awarded in these illegal lawsuit lottery scams will be paid by you and me in raised insurance premiums. In other words we are being forced to participate in an illegal lottery while the courts go along, ignoring the law.

Posted by Danny Carlton at January 12, 2007 9:29 AM