Legal Question in Insurance Law in California

6 years ago my girlfriend and I sat down with our insurance agent for two purposes: 1) Update her existing coverage to make sure that all of her belongings were properly covered and 2) to add me as an additional insured to all of her policies. We had multiple meetings with him and generated lists of all of our possessions with pictures and values.

Fast forward 6 years. The insurance agent has quit and we have transferred our policies to another agent in the same company. Our house was burglarized last Wednesday. We called our new agent and discovered that none of the property lists and photos were transferred to her with the policy. All three items we had the lists and photos backed up on were stolen. The insurance company was supposed to be our off-site back-up for just this type of occurrence.

We were also told that because we are not married that none of my property is covered. It turns out that the agent we sat down with only added me to the vehicle policy as an additional driver; not even as an additional insured in spite of multiple sit down meetings at which we discussed my property and its value.

In addition, he did not raise my girlfriends coverage enough to even come close to covering the values on the lists she gave him even though he was specifically instructed to do so.

My girlfriend has three rental properties, a personal residence and two vehicles insured with this company. She has been continuously insured by this company since 1979.

Do we have any recourse?


Asked on 1/29/13, 11:09 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

If you have admissible evidence of everything you say, yes. You probably have several different causes of action and legal theories under which you could sue the insurance company. The issue is proof. There will also be the question of why you didn't review your policy declarations that were sent to your girlfriend after the changes were supposed to be made. That may reduce your recovery.

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Answered on 1/29/13, 11:27 am


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