South Florida residents will likely remember Aaron Hirschhorn, the successful Miami entrepreneur who launched a dog-sitting service then won a big investment for a stem-cell therapy for dogs when he appeared on the “Shark Tank” TV show in 2019.
Hirschorn died in 2021 when a 38-foot Chris Craft boat collided with the hoverboard watercraft he was riding in Biscayne Bay. His widow was awarded $66 million in arbitration, from the boat owner and operator.
Four years later, that case and its insurance impact continue to reverberate through the federal court system in two states. Hirschhorn’s widow’s Florida lawsuit against Clear Blue Specialty Insurance and against Yachtinsure Services, a managing general agent and claims-management firm, is still pending. It demands that the insurance firms pay at least the $500,000 policy limit on the covered boat involved in the accident. Widow Karen Nissim also named Aspen Insurance, which wrote a similar policy on one of the boat owners.
In the latest development, Clear Blue Insurance this week won a judgment of its own, requiring Yachtinsure Services to comply with the terms of its contract agreement and to finish adjusting other high-dollar claims while the underlying litigation continues. Yachtinsure had essentially refused to handle any more big claims for Clear Blue after the Hirschhorn fatality, according to Clear Blue’s complaint.
“The public has an interest in the insurance industry functioning effectively and reliably, which requires the prompt adjustment of claims. Furthermore, this is at bottom a contract issue, and the public has a significant interest in ensuring that valid contracts are enforced,” U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, in federal court in North Carolina, wrote in the June 2 order.
Yachtinsure has disputed Clear Blue’s assertions and its lawyer said the firm has only one claim remaining.
The litigation highlights Florida’s law that forbids insurers from denying claims based on “technicalities” that have no real bearing on the outcome of an event. Coverage for the Hirschhorn accident was denied, on Yachtinsure’s letterhead, due to an “unapproved operator” at the helm of the boat that fateful day, according to Hirschhorn widow Karen Nissim’s amended complaint. But the insurance declaration page clearly lists the Chris Craft boat owner, by name, as an operator, the lawsuit contends.
