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Skeete v. Dorvius6/10/2005
tended the holding of Lehrhoff v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 271 N.J. Super. 340 (App. Div. 1994). The facts here are markedly different from that matter.
This is not a case in which the declarations pages of a personal automobile insurance policy contained information that was rendered false by application of the policy's provisions. Such were the facts in Lehrhoff where the personal automobile policy named a couple's son as a covered person for the family's insured vehicles, but contradictory terms of the policy operated to exclude him from coverage. Id. at 349. The Appellate Division below read Lehrhoff as requiring a declarations page to inform a policyholder about all nuances of coverage. However, the facts in Lehrhoff do not support such a sweeping conclusion. To the extent the Lehrhoff decision contains language that broadly describes the declarations page as "defin " a policyholder's coverage, id. at 347, that language must be understood as an inapt descriptor of the purpose of the "declarations" sheet or pages of a policy.
A "declarations" sheet does not --- and does not purport to -- summarize an entire policy. Nor do insurance regulatory requirements require it to do so. One can search the regulations of the Department of Banking and Insurance in vain for an overall standard for declarations sheets. The few regulatory references to the declarations sheet disclose finely focused requirements not pertinent here.
Declarations sheets may vary from insurer to insurer. Their common features, however, illuminate the purpose of the document. As was the case here, the declarations sheet identifies the attributes that differentiate one policyholder of the insurer from another, i.e. number of cars, age, use, coverages selected and their upper limits, from the viewpoint of the insurer and, from that vantage point, enables the policyholder to examine the premium set for the policy based on rates charged for the selections made. One need only compare a declarations sheet to the prescribed format and text requirements for the detailed Coverage Selection Form that must be mailed to an insured, with a Buyer's Guide, in connection with both securing coverage and upon each successive renewal, to recognize the modest, yet practical expectations placed on the minimal information captured in the declarations sheet. See N.J.A.C. 11:3-15.1 to -15 App. (establishing requirements for Buyer's Guide, Coverage Selection Form, and Automobile Insurance Consumer Bill of Rights). In respect of coverages selected, the declarations sheet is fundamentally unlike the Coverage Selection Form in informative detail. It is not an explanation of the coverage selections; it merely lists the selections and identifies their upper parameters. The policy provisions remain operative and controlling on the specifics of coverage.
It is not disputed in this record that the declarations pages referred the insured to the policy's terms in respect of coverage limits. The declarations pages indicated that the coverages and limits listed were subject to the terms of the policy. This declarations sheet thus performed its task. The insured was informed accurately of the coverages she selected for her personal automobile, and their upper limits. Because the policy provisions flesh out the terms of the coverages, the insurer's so-called "failure" to provide detailed explanations about the policy's terms on the declarations sheet does not make the declarations misleading. To suggest that the declarations sheet can, and must, summarize detailed, operative policy terms, is unrealistic and unreasonable.
That said, I turn to my disagreement with the majority of the Court in this matter. The insured received, w
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