Details have now been released about the blaze in Ohio that destroyed a $4 million home.
In 2014, a massive fire ripped through a multi-million dollar home in Indian Hill, Ohio, but despite the fact that it was covered by fire insurance, the insurer denied the owner’s claim and refused to pay for the damages.
New details with regards to that case have now emerged to shine some light on the situation.
The homeowners, Jeffrey and Maria Decker, filed a $60 million lawsuit against the fire insurance company, last January. The company in question is Chubb National Insurance Co. The suit alleged that the insurer did not honor the claims made by the couple and denied them “without reasonable justification,” and that the outcome was a breach of contract. That said, the insurance company has since revealed that the homeowners had been in violation of their policy’s “concealment or fraud” clause, as was described in a U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, last week, in the form of a 23-page filing, complemented by 17 supporting exhibits.
There were a number of ways in which the couple has now been accused of breach of the fire insurance policy.
According to the company, the ways in which the homeowners had misrepresented or concealed were the following:
• The cost of the development and construction of the property
• The condition of the property on the day the fire actually occurred
• The efforts they had previously made in order to try to sell the property before the fire
• The forms and quantities of currency stored in safes on the property when the fire destroyed the home.
The filing that Chubb made showed that Indian Hill Rangers had informed the insurer’s investigators that mobile phone calls were made by Jeffrey Decker on the day of the fire. Those calls “pinged” off a tower located near the $4 million home. That said, those pings were recorded at times when Decker had said that he was nowhere near the home.
Due to a number of alleged “concealments and misrepresentations” from the Deckers, the insurer made payments for debris removal, contents damage, the destruction of a 2003 SL500 Mercedes-Benz, and extra living expenses (totaling $698,854.29).