 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Skeete v. Dorvius6/10/2005
ith her policy and in addition to the declarations pages attached to that policy, a cover letter that specifically drew her attention to a concise, understandable three-page notice in which the UM/UIM limitation was explained. That criticized communication is not faulted for containing false, deceptive, or misleading information. Indeed, there is no suggestion in this record that the notice description of the change in the UM/UIM coverage, which Prudential provided in its supplemental material, was inadequate in any way. Ironically, Prudential is faulted for including too much information in what it communicated to its insured. According to the majority, Prudential's blame lies in telling its insured an undefined, and indefinable, "too much" at one time.
Without more --- such as a claim that Prudential intentionally "buried" this information in an avalanche of unnecessary data -- the adequacy of Prudential's notice is not lessened simply because of the quantity of materials included in the mailing. That is particularly so when as here, the information imparted by the insurance carrier, both in its substance and in its quantity, was due to statutory changes being effectuated at that time. At bottom, the Court bases its holding on personal predilections -- it imposes as the standard of measure its own favored means for highlighting the terms of the insured's UM/UIM coverage to the insured. According to the majority, the information here was prominent, but just was not prominent enough. In the majority's view, it was not enough that the UM/UIM information was placed in an explanatory letter accompanying the policy. The explanatory notice of the change in UM/UIM coverage simply did not stand out in the large package of information mailed at one time to the insured with the policy.
That criticism is, to me, too fickle to apply reasonably. I cannot join in a holding that provides an entire industry with so little guidance as to how it must conduct its business particularly when, as here, it is required to address wholesale statutory changes affecting the policies of insureds. The community of regulated insurers --- indeed, every citizen of this State --rightfully is entitled to more certainty than that.
Insurers must be able to communicate with their insureds about policy information without being subjected to the capricious preferences of a reviewing court about how a communication could have been improved. A court's preferred approach to that communication (what words must be used to broadcast its prominence above other information that must be disclosed, or where it is located within a document or series of documents containing other information about the policy, and whether it should be separately stapled, or mailed by separate envelope) simply makes for a changeable standard not conducive as a rule of law that governs whether policy language will be enforced.
One wonders now how many materials can be mailed to an insured in one mailing before running afoul of the Court's holding today. Are three, ten, or twenty pages permissible? Are fifty too many to include in one mailing? Does the order of placement of the documents within the envelope matter? Must individual envelopes be the only safe means of communicating information to an insured henceforth? In today's electronic age, we should not hamstring insurers in their modes of communication with insureds by deciding this matter on arcane, and ultimately personally idiosyncratic, notions of how information is to be shared.
I must respectfully dissent. I would reverse the Appellate Division and reinstate the judgment of the trial court that awarded summary judgment to Prudential and dismissed this action.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 New Jersey Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|