One year after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the U.S. District Court of Southern Mississippi has dismissed a lawsuit that contended a Nationwide insurance agent misled a policyholder into believing his homeowners' policy would cover flood damage. The decision also reinforced what many industry experts believe is a clear exclusion for flooding and storm surge in standard homeowners' insurance policies.
In Leonard v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance, at issue was coverage relating to the significant storm surge that occurred as a result of Katrina making landfall. The surge was so severe that it drastically damaged many residential properties located outside of Mississippi's designated flood plain area that requires flood insurance as part of homeowners' lending agreements. Some homeowners outside this designated area believed that they were not at risk or that damages would be covered by their homeowners' insurance policies, even though exclusions for such damage are expressly stated in their policies.
In Paul and Julie Leonard's lawsuit, they argued that a Nationwide agent whom did business with them was misleading on coverage issues and encouraged them not to purchase a flood-insurance policy from the National Flood Insurance Program.
Recommended For You
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
