If you are pursuing an all-risk first-party property insurance claim on behalf of an insured, or defending such a claim on behalf of an insurer, a recent case includes a short snippet explaining the corresponding burdens of proof:
To make a claim under an all-risk policy, the insured must establish that her home suffered a covered loss while the policy was in effect. Once established, “the burden shifts to the insurer to prove that the cause of the loss was excluded from coverage under the policy’s terms.” And if an insurer relies on an exclusion to deny coverage, the insurer “has the burden of demonstrating that the allegations of the complaint are cast solely and entirely within the policy exclusion and are subject to no other reasonable interpretation.”The burden then shifts once more to the insured to prove an exception to the exclusion contained in the insurance policy.
Spartan Services Corp. v. People’s Trust Ins. Co., 50 Fla.L.Weekly D1038a (Fla. 3d DCA 2025).
Remember, if you are an insured, you need to prove the loss occurred while the policy was in force. This shifts the burden to the insurer to prove the loss was excluded under the policy. Then, the burden shifts back to the insured to prove an exception to the exclusion, or that the exclusion doesn’t apply.
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.