The Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) said insurance contracts with homeowners are required to provide prescribed coverage under the Insurance Contracts Act.
“Prescribed coverage includes flood,” said ALA Queensland President Adam Tayler.
“If an insurer does not provide that coverage under a contract and they want to avoid paying they must prove that, prior to the contract being entered into, the homeowner was advised that the policy did not include coverage for flood,” he said.
“If they cannot prove that they must pay.”
Mr Tayler said the definition of “flood” was not restricted to riverine or storm flooding.
He said ALA members are reporting that clients are getting standard short letters denying claims in situations where they thought they had coverage.
“This behaviour is reprehensible and needs to be stopped,” Mr Tayler said.
He said the ALA’s members were committed to supporting legal clinics in flood-affected areas in Queensland to ensure that as many people as possible were able to exercise their legal rights to ensure that insurers were required to make good on their promises.
“These legal clinics are planned to roll out over the next few weeks if insurers continued to attempt to thumb their noses at those who trusted in their policies, but have lost everything,” Mr Tayler said.
The first clinic is being planned for Rockhampton and details likely to be finalised in the next few days, an ALA statement said.
More than 340 lawyers and academics are attending the ALA Queensland meeting on the Sunshine Coast this weekend.
Source : News.com.au
