When it comes to property insurance claims, particularly those under a homeowner’s insurance policy, an insured will oftentimes assign its benefits under the policy to a restoration contractor. The request for the assignment may likely be prompted by the contractor that does not want to perform the work without the assignment of benefits. The assignment of benefits (also known by the acronym “AOB”) allows the third-party contractor (as the assignee of the insured) to sue the insurer directly for benefits under the policy associated with the restoration work.
Recently, the Fourth District Court of Appeal found enforceable a provision in a homeowner’s insurance policy that stated, “[n]o assignment of claim benefits, regardless of whether made before a loss or after a loss, shall be valid without the written consent of all ‘insureds,’ all additional insureds, and all mortgagee(s) named in this policy.” Restoration 1 of Port St. Lucie v. Ark Royal Ins. Co., 43 Fla.L.Weekly D2056a (Fla. 4th DCA 2018). This meant that for the assignment of benefits to be valid, all insureds and the insured’s mortgagee had to sign off on the assignment.
In this case, the restoration contractor got the assignment of benefits signed by the wife-insured, but the assignment was not signed by the husband-insured or the mortgagee. Based on this, the insurer denied payment to the restoration contractor. The restoration contractor sued the insured based on the assignment and the Fourth District affirmed the trial court in dismissing the complaint holding that the language of the assignment of benefits provision in the policy is enforceable (meaning the contractor needed the written consent of all insureds and the mortgagee in order to effectuate a valid assignment).
Regardless of your feelings about assignment of benefits, the language in the homeowner’s policy must be reviewed to ensure compliance with any assignment of benefits language in the policy.
Please contact David Adelstein at dadelstein@gmail.com or (954) 361-4720 if you have questions or would like more information regarding this article. You can follow David Adelstein on Twitter @DavidAdelstein1.