A San Bernardino County jury has awarded two women $18 million after determining their insurance carrier acted in bad faith when it failed to pay out more than $100,000 to cover repairs for their flood-damaged home.
According to a lawsuit filed in San Bernardino Superior Court in September 2020, rain water from a large storm on Feb. 15, 2019, flooded the home of Garnier and Toft, who are sisters. The damage rendered their property uninhabitable, according to the lawsuit. Water and mud in the home’s crawlspace destroyed the heating and air conditioning system and damaged the electrical system, leaving much of the house without electricity. Cracks began appearing on walls throughout the home, Hernandez said in a news release.
Hernandez said the siblings were forced to live in their home without heat for about five years while they battled their insurance company in court. However, in October 2023, Global Indemnity paid the sisters $140,000, the full amount of their policy, claiming the insurance carrier was previously unaware that Garnier and Toft had been living without heat. The company maintained it was an oversight that their insurance adjuster missed, Hernandez said in the news release.California spent $3.