A crane that was reportedly being used to set up a termite tenting operation fell onto a Fort Lauderdale home last week, causing significant structural damage to the one-story structure.
Hours later, a second crane was brought in to remove the fallen one. It too collapsed under the weight, causing further damage—and likely a costlier insuran
ce claim—on the home in the 800 block of Southeast 8th Street, a leafy residential neighborhood in the Rio Vista neighborhood, the Miami Herald reported.
Multiple news sites reported that by Friday evening, the wreckage had been successfully removed without further major damage. Crews had to cut on of the fallen crane booms into pieces to move them from the site, WSVN news reported.
No one was home at the house, and no injuries were reported. The homeowners and their insurance company were not named in the local news reports.
Cooper Crane, an equipment rental firm in Florida, was the company that provided the cranes. Inspectors with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration were at the scene Thursday, interviewing workers.
Crane collapses in Florida have been significant sources of insurance claims and claims subrogation litigation in recent years. Florida ranked second natio
nally in the number of fatal crane accidents, from 2011 to 2017, with 16 fatalities, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates. Texas was ranked first, with 50 fatal injuries.
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It’s normally helpful to read the full policy, but since I don’t have the full policy, I’m relying on the policy sections that are quoted in the court’s opinion, ISO endorsement, PP 14 23 12 15 Underinsured Motorists Coverage – Idaho
, PP 04 02 06 98 Single Underinsured Motorists Limit, and ISO Personal Auto Policy, PP 00 01 01 05 (all ISO forms are the currently filed editions of those forms the time of the accident).
We start with looking at how the policy in question provided coverage for Underinsured Motorists coverage.
We will pay for damages for bodily injury which an insured person is legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of an underinsured motor vehicle. The bodily injury must be caused by a car accident and result fro
m the ownership, upkeep or use of an underinsured motor vehicle. (words in bold indicate defined terms within the policy)
That insuring agreement should look similar to what we would expect, but we still need to define an underinsured motor vehicle. This is not the entire definition, just what’s important for our purposes here.
Underinsured motor vehicle means a motor vehicle to which a bodily injury liability bond or policy applies at the time of the car accident providing bodily injury liability limits less than the limit of liability for this coverage.
Underinsured motor vehicle does not mean a vehicle… insured by a bodily injury liability bond or policy at the time of the car accident which provides bodily injury lim
its of liability less than the minimum bodily injury liability limits that comply with the financial responsibility law of the policy state.
What does all that mean?
In this case, the insured bought an auto liability policy that complied with the minimum requirements in the state of Idaho. So did the other party to the accident. If we
read the policy, allowing for the terms that are defined within, and reading the rest according to a general understanding of the words and grammar that we’re reading, we might come up with the same understanding that the insurance company had. There’s no coverage.
