Article Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel

By Ludmilla Lelis

Published October 17, 2008 

A Daytona Beach Shores condominium won nearly $1 million Thursday in its insurance claim for 2004 hurricane damage, providing a key victory for beachfront properties fighting Citizens Property Insurance Corp.

The Volusia jury decided that the state-run insurer had shortchanged Sunglow Condominium Resorts $950,000 for damage to the 10-story building after hurricanes Charley and Frances swept across Florida.

"We're thrilled and we're vindicated," said Andrew Plunked, an attorney for the condominium, whose law firm has 30 clients statewide with unresolved hurricane claims against Citizens. "They're all similar issues, but every client has their own different story to tell, and we'll be happy to tell all of them."

The verdict also gives the condominium a chance to test a more thorny legal issue: whether Citizens acted in bad faith for not fully paying out those claims. That issue hasn't been fully tested in court against the central question of whether Citizens, as a government insurer, is immune from such a claim.

Plunked said the condominium association will push forth with the bad-faith claim and another claim for damages for attorney fees and court costs.

David Doyle, an attorney for Citizens, was disappointed with Thursday's decision but was encouraged that the verdict fell well short of the $5 million the condominium sought.

"The jury had a tough job and a lot of things to sort out," said Doyle, who argued that Citizens already paid the covered damage and didn't owe any more. "We were confident Citizens had done the right thing."

Statewide, Citizens has about 2,000 unresolved hurricane claims from the 2004 and 2005 seasons, with a common theme among the property owners that it is lowballing the damage estimates. It has taken four years for the cases to reach trial.

The Sunglow case was the first of nine such lawsuits pending from Volusia beachfront condominiums, and the jury had to decide whether the condominium deserved more than the $370,000 that Citizens already paid.

For two weeks, jurors revisited the 2004 season -- hearing testimony about the wind speeds of Charley and Frances, the torrential rains. They saw dozens of photos and heard testimony from engineers about what the storms did to the building.

Doyle tried to argue that some damage wasn't covered by the policy. He told jurors the winds from Frances weren't strong enough to cause that damage, and Citizens shouldn't be responsible if the condominium had been poorly maintained.

But the jury agreed that Citizens should have paid more.