Condo Residents Allege Fraudulent Mishandling Of Insurance Claim For Hurricane Damage Led Insurer To Stiff HOA; Owners Left With $100K+ Assessment

In Collier County, Florida, the Naples Daily News reports:

• After paying huge assessments for repairs after Hurricane Wilma, condo owners at the Monaco Beach Club have filed a class-action lawsuit, seeking damages for an insurance claim gone wrong.
• The lawsuit, filed in Collier Circuit Court, is against the condo association and former members of its board of directors, who were in office when the insurance claim for hurricane damages was made.
• Hurricane Wilma hit in 2005. Every owner at the time of the storm – whether they had damage or not to their condo – ended up with an assessment of more than $100,000 to pay for repairs to the 18-story building off Gulf Shore Boulevard in Naples.
• QBE Insurance,(1) the building’s insurer, paid nothing after it accused the condominium association of inflating its claim, which originally came in at more than $20 million. After a long legal battle in Collier Circuit Court, a jury sided with QBE.

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• When fraud is found in a claim, an insurer isn’t required to pay a penny, even when there are real damages that exceed the deductible. Condo owners had to pick up the tab for millions in repairs.

For more, see Monaco Beach Club residents sue condo association over Hurricane Wilma damages.

For the lawsuit, see Bultinck, et al. v. Klein, et al.

(1) The story is silent whether this QBE Insurance, which successfully dodged having to cough up the cash for any portion of the condo association's damage claim, has any connection with the QBE Insurance Corporation recently named in a lawsuit accusing it of participating with Wells Fargo in an alleged force-placed insurance racket that screwed over financially strapped homeowners. See:

• South Florida Homeowners Seek Class Action Status In Lawsuit Tagging Loan Servicer Over Dubious, Force-Placed Insurance 'Gravy Train',
• Williams, et al. v. Wells Fargo Financial Inc., et al.