Section 17 Effect of Insurer Obtaining Expert Opinion

• Library: Damages 2012

Some cases indicate that the insurer’s procurement of an expert opinion that indicates that the loss would not be covered under the policy would preclude the assessment of vexatious penalties. Thus, in Francka v. Fire Insurance Exchange, 668 S.W.2d 189, 190 (Mo. App. S.D. 1984), the court held that investigations by the State Fire Marshal and the insurer’s own investigator, when combined, were sufficient to give the insurer a reasonable basis for believing that the insured set the fire and thus would have prevented the submission of vexatious penalties.

To the same effect is Groves v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 540 S.W.2d 39 (Mo. banc 1976), in which the insurer had procured an expert opinion that the cause of the damage to the...