Insurance Claims: Corless Associates heads to Jury Trial Against Safeway Property Insurance Company on Mobile Home Dispute

By order of the Hernando County Court, Safeway Property Insurance Company has been ordered to trial against Wayne and Gina Egliskis on September 6, 2011. Safeway declined to pay the full amount of a claim in what Mr. and Mrs. Egliskis describe as a "total loss" to the their mobile home.

In June, 2010, a storm pushed a large oak tree over upon the Egliskis mobile home, causing catastrophic damage to the structure. "The photos tell the story, when an enormous tree is so heavy, it crashed through the mobile home, where you can see the tree in the homeowners' bed," said Corless, who is an insurance lawyer representing the homeowners. Luckily for the owners of the home, they were not present, as the tree mangled nearly half of the home.

The dispute? Safeway thinks the 1994 mobile home should be repaired, not replaced, despite the fact the estimate for repairs is nearly double the value of the property. The funny part: after the home was crushed by the tree and while the home was being evaluated, Safeway cancelled their insurance policy. Reason why: "condition of the home."

Safeway intends to line up contractors to say they would be willing to conduct the repairs. Whether this will be persuasive to the jury will be the challenge for them. "I believe this problem, of Safeway selling insurance and then refusing to provide coverage for total loss is not isolated to this case, and I bet there are more people out there with this same problem - I don't think Safeway made this decision and no others like it." Under Florida law, if a home, be it mobile or not suffers damage more than its value, the insurer is liable for the policy limits, and not just for the cost of repairs.

"We always assess our cases from the perspective of whether we would take a case to trial, so we can recover as much as possible for our clients, and to recovery all of our fees from our opponents."

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Ted Corless | Corless Associates

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