A Legal Guide to Recovering for Flood Losses

A Legal Guide to Recovering for Flood Losses is a first-of-its-kind compendium of strategies for recovery from flood damages. It explains the component parts of the standard water/flood exclusion in property policies and identifies potential remedies. It has four parts:

- The First Section begins with an analysis of the components parts of the standard water/flood exclusion in property policies. That is followed by a discussion of discrete clauses in property policies that provide limited coverage for flood losses.

- The Second Section explores coverage under private flood insurance--both primary and excess--and under the Federal Emergency Management Agency Standard Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP). Discussion of the SFIP examines in depth the requirements for proofs of loss as deficient or untimely proofs of loss is the most common reason policyholders are denied coverage.

- The Third Section highlights when recovery may be obtained under other types of coverages: business interruption; builder’s risk; equipment breakdown; commercial general liability; Directors & Officers; and automobile insurance. For each type of insurance policy, the treatise explains the coverage generally and then focuses on policy language that either covers or excludes flood losses.

- The Fourth and Final Section concerns recovery from tortfeasors: insurance agents and brokers; landlords and tenants; governments; meteorologists and businesses providing inaccurate information about flooding dangers or failing to warn customers about known dangers.

Douglas Scott MacGregor is a graduate of Eckerd College and the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida and also earned an M.S.W. at the University of South Florida. He is the author of more than 20 books and the chapter on flood insurance in the New Appleman on Insurance Law Library Edition. He lives in the town of Gulfport on Florida’s West Coast.