NO DUTY TO ANNUALLY INFORM INSURED OF POLICY EXCLUSION ABSENT SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP (New Jersey Appellate Division)
The insured’s home was damaged by a sump pump failure. The policy did not cover sump pump failures. Years before the loss, the carrier sent the insured notice that his policy did not cover sump pump failures and offered an endorsement for additional sump pump protection. The insured saw the notice, but took no action. The insurer did not send the same notice in the ensuing years.
The insured brought negligence and bad faith claims because the insurer did not send the notice for sump pump coverage every year.
The trial court granted summary judgment to the insurer, and the Appellate Division affirmed.
The Appellate Division observed that, absent a special relationship, “there is no common law duty of a carrier or its agents to advise an insured concerning the possible need for higher policy limits upon renewal of the policy.” Further, “to establish a special relationship creating a duty to advise about adequacy of insurance, ‘there must be a long-standing relationship between the parties, some type of interaction on the question of coverage, and reliance by the insured on representations of the insurance agent to the insured’s detriment….’”
In this case, the insured did not establish “a basis for finding a special relationship … that would give rise to a duty to inform him of the need to buy sump pump coverage, or to inform him annually of the option to do so.” Simply providing notice years earlier that there was no coverage and insureds needed to purchase an endorsement to obtain sump pump coverage did not create that relationship. Rather, the notice clearly told the insured that he had no coverage, and the policy itself unambiguously excluded coverage.
In sum, the insured put on no evidence that he could rightly “assume his policy included coverage in subsequent years without purchasing the endorsement.”
Date of Decision: June 22, 2020
Yew v. FMI Insurance Co., Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division DOCKET NO. A-4947-18T3, 2020 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1200 (N.J. App. Div. June 22, 2020) (Messano, Ostrer, JJ.)
