Deductible and Number of Occurrences under Property Policy
December 12, 2011
Our insured, a commercial bank, has a foreclosure that is a large vacant building that housed a painting company. During a three-week period, a group of people broke into the building and stripped out all of the electrical system. The damage estimate is close to $900,000. The carrier said that since the perpetrators entered the building numerous times over that period, more than one deductible applies. The policy does not define occurrence. I believe that since it is a series of similar events by the same group of perpetrators, it is a single occurrence deserving one deductible. Is that an appropriate argument?
Kansas Subscriber
The insured must be able to show evidence that it was the same group of perpetrators who committed the acts, and they must have been committed within a reasonable amount of time. If the insured noticed things disappearing over a three-week period as opposed to two or three nights in a row, it would be more difficult to consider that as one occurrence.
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