2014 Indiana Homeowners Insurance Complaint Index

	NAIC #	Company Name	Premium	Number	Index
1	33898	Aegis Security Insurance Company	728,542	1	DNC
2	19240	Allstate Indemnity Company	2,498,961	2	19.71
3	19232	Allstate Insurance Company	45,755,099	4	2.15
4	17230	Allstate Property And Casualty Insurance Company	58,431,436	5	2.11
5	19275	American Family Mutual Insurance Company	81,690,022	4	1.21
6	38652	American Modern Select Insurance Company	5,188,327	1	4.75
7	19992	American Select Insurance Company	6,245,114	1	3.94
8	10052	Chubb National Insurance Company	7,680,181	1	3.21
9	29734	Conifer Insurance Company	4,560,272	1	5.40
10	40649	Economy Premier Assurance Company	1,393,820	1	17.67
11	22292	Hanover Insurance Company	1,171	1	DNC
12	13927	Homesite Insurance Company of the Midwest	18,528,214	2	2.66
13	22624	Indiana Farmers Mutual Insurance Company	45,541,821	1	0.54
14	42404	Liberty Insurance Corporation	11,949,914	1	2.06
15	33600	LM Insurance Corporation	11,019,915	1	2.23
16	23043	Liberty Mutual Insurance Company	None	1	DNC
17	21229	MemberSelect Insurance Company	10,050,059	1	2.45
18	23353	Meridian Security Insurance Company	13,528,349	1	1.82
19	14621	Motorists Mutual Insurance Company	6,307,467	1	3.90
20	23779	Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Company	18,676,418	1	1.32
21	32700	Owners Insurance Company	26,433,189	3	2.80
22	32905	Property-Owners Insurance Company	23,933,789	1	1.03
23	11000	Sentinel Insurance Company, Ltd.	1,625,531	1	15.15
24	25143	State Farm Fire and Casualty Company	484,909,595	27	1.37
25	25178	State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company	None	1	DNC
26	40118	Trustgard Insurance Company	11,905,377	2	4.14
27	15288	United Farm Family Mutual Insurance Company	137,742,927	4	0.72
28	44393	West American Insurance Company	(35,270)	1	DNC
		Subtotal Premium and Complaints	1,036,290,240	72
		162 Companies with Zero Complaints	737,032,294
		Total Premium and Complaints	1,773,322,534	72
		Report does not include 162 companies with zero complaints
		DNC- did not calculate (premiums under $1 million)
		None – No premium was reported during 2014.
		Premium information from Property & Casualty Annual Statement Page 19, Line 4, Column 1

The information contained in this table is based on figures published by the Indiana Department of Insurance on its website.  “Number” in the table above refers to the number of complaints as published by the IDOI.

The Business Activity Exclusion

What happens if you operate a business – say an auto repair shop – as a means of making a living, and then suffer a fire loss to personal property located in that business? Assume the fire occurs as a result of working on a car in your repair shop, but that at the time of the fire you were not actually engaged in business; rather, you were working on your own car, or perhaps helping a friend to work on her car as a favor. Would the business activities exclusion in your homeowner’s insurance policy preclude you from recovering for the loss of your personal property?

The rule in Indiana is that “an insured is engaged in a business pursuit only when he pursues a continued or regular activity for the purpose of earning a livelihood. American Family Mutual Ins. Co. v. Bentley, 352 N.E.2d 860, 865 (Ind. Ct. App. 1976) (emphasis added); see also Asbury v. Indiana Union Mut. Ins. Co., 441 N.E.2d 232, 239 (Ind. Ct. App. 1982) (same). Further, “[w]hether an activity is a ‘business’ or property is ‘business property’ under an insurance policy is almost always a factual question presented for determination by the trier of fact or jury.” Id., at 243. The question, then, should turn on what you were doing at the time, and not just on the fact that the loss occurred at your business.

In a 2012 decision the district court for the Northern District of Indiana rejected the argument that personal property that is the same as an insured’s business property automatically means a business exclusion applied to preclude coverage for the loss. In Bachman v. AMCO Insurance Company, 2012 WL 4322746 (N.D.Ind. Sept. 20, 2012), the insured sued AMCO for breach of contract after the insurance company applied a $10,000 limitation in its policy applicable to property located in the residence premises used mainly for “business” purposes. Following a theft, the insured, who sold sports cards out of his home, made a claim under his homeowner’s policy for some $150,000 worth of Fleer basketball cards. The cards had been purchased with money from his business, but the insured considered the particular cards stolen to be his “personal collection”. Id. at *1-2. The insured even admitted that he considered his personal collection to be “investments” that he planned to sell one day when he was “ready to retire.” Id., at *1.

The insurance company argued that the $10,000 business property limitation in its policy applied to the stolen basketball cards and, “[r]elying on excerpts from [the insured’s] examination under oath, . . . contend[ed] that the subject property was business property because it was stored in a manner indistinguishable from the business inventory and was acquired with resources from [the business] with the intention of eventually being sold through the company.” Id., at *5. The insurance company relied on Asbury v. Ind. Union Mut. Ins. Co. (and two other cases) to support its argument. Id.

The district court first noted that the cases relied on by the insurance company (including Asbury) “actually support the denial of summary judgment.” Id. The district court went on to reason as follows:

To the extent that AMCO argues that the Fleer basketball cards automatically fit within the business property limitation at issue simply because Mr. Bachman operated a sports memorabilia business out of his home on a consistent basis at the time of the burglary, the argument cannot result in the granting of summary judgment in AMCO’s favor. No one disputes that Spectator Sportscards, Inc. constituted a “business” and that Mr. Bachman regularly and continually sold sports memorabilia from his home office to third persons for the purpose of earning a livelihood. . . . However, the limitation in AMCO’s policy plainly depends on the use of the property at issue.

Id., at *7 (emphasis in original; internal citation omitted).

Issues like this can arise in many contexts.  The application of exclusions in policies is not necessarily simple or obvious, and sometimes the coverage is actually more broad than it seems.  If you have suffered a loss and are involved in a dispute with your insurance company about what is covered and what is excluded by your policy, whether it is a homeowners policy or a commercial policy, you should contact an attorney with experience reading and interpreting the coverages, conditions, limitations and exclusions. Sometimes the insurance company takes a position that looks correct at first glance, but they may not be looking at the whole picture.