ALE coverage for damages during Texas winter storm

Coverage Q&A: A homeowner had to take drastic measures to survive during Winter Storm Uri.

An insured took drastic measures to survive during a February winter storm in Texas. Will ALE cover the losses? (Photo: Shutterstock)

Every claim is different, and some insurance policies can be difficult to interpret for unique situations. FC&S Expert Coverage Interpretation, the recognized authority on insurance coverage interpretation and analysis for the P&C industry, makes it simple to find credible answers to your complicated coverage questions. Analysis brought to you by our FC&S experts. 

Editor’s Note: Insurance coverage is often misunderstood. Insureds, and sometimes even professionals, look for coverage when there is none. It’s particularly tempting when there are extenuating circumstances, and granting coverage seems like the decent thing to do given the situation. This week’s question is such a situation.

Question: A woman in Texas whose power was out during the recent winter storm experienced flooding from burst water pipes. Although this is a covered loss that would require Additional Living Expenses (ALE) to be paid, she could not leave her home because all of the hotels were either without power or full.

Her only reasonable choice was to stay home and burn what she could in her fireplace. She burned her cabinet doors. Would there perhaps be coverage under ALE for this? And if so, would the damage to the kitchen be limited to the ALE limit?

I would think that this could also be considered “mitigation” under Coverage A and Coverage C.

In the scenario described above, would there be any coverage for the cost to replace the cabinet doors, whether as mitigation or an Additional Living Expense?

— Hawaii Subscriber 

Answer: To learn the answer to this week’s coverage Q&A, please log into your FC&S Expert Coverage Interpretation account.

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