Insurer To Owner Of Fire-Damaged Inn Facing Foreclosure Who Filed $6M Insurance Claim: "Take A Hike!"

In Asheville, North Carolina, WRAL-TV reports:

• The company that insured a historic inn in western North Carolina is refusing to pay for damages from a fire, saying someone associated with the owners is responsible for the blaze. The Asheville Citizen-Times reported Thursday the owner is accusing former employees of the Richmond Hill Inn of setting the fire last year that destroyed the inn's centerpiece mansion as it faced a scheduled foreclosure auction.

• Harleysville Mutual Insurance Co. filed a letter with the court in January saying it wouldn't pay the claim seeking at least $6 million. In turn, owner William Gray posted a note on the inn's Web site saying he wouldn't be able to reopen because of vandalism, theft and arson by former employees.

• Harleysville's lawsuit asks a court to void an insurance claim filed by The Hammocks seeking at least $6 million. It says the company won't pay for "loss caused by or resulting from criminal, fraudulent, dishonest or illegal acts committed alone or in collusion with another." [...] The inn's foreclosure had been finalized March 16, 2009, with an auction scheduled a month later. But on March 19, an early morning fire destroyed the mansion.

For more, see Insurer: No money for damage at NC inn that burned.