Legal Question in Insurance Law in California

Re: Personal effect loss in fire at work

Your HO insurance carrier will sort it out including dealing with the school's carrier if need be.

Re: Personal effect loss in fire at work

Ask the school's insurance company for a denial letter. Your homeowners policy will cover your personal property anywhere in the world. However, you have to be careful about the "use it and lose it" philosophy of some insurance companies that will result in your insurance being cancelled. You can read about this at www.calpiblog.com, my blog, and see if it is worthwhile to file a claim.

Re: Personal effect loss in fire at work

What the school claimed is less important than what its insurer paid for. It is quite possible that the insurer refused to pay for your wife's possessions.

I agree with Mr. Stone's suggestion that you turn the matter over to your own insurance company and let them sort it out for you.

Re: Personal effect loss in fire at work

I know Mr. Stein's warning about making a HO claim when unnecessary is well taken, having such issues against a nonrenewing HO insurer (by coincidence that was also a $4,500 claim which caused the nonrenewal.)

The school must have an intemized list of what it claimed, and the insurer may have not paid for the whole loss. That means the insurer did not pay the school for your wife's loss.

If so, you may have a liability claim against the school, which is to say against the same insurer, for the loss of those personal items. Perhaps the school was negligent, or???

I would look at the policy and see just who and what it insures for both property damage and for liability.

But the school cannot rightfully claim your property as its loss without having set that forth in its claim demand. If it knowingly did so to get a larger recovery, that would be a real problem for the persons responsible.