Insurer Sued: After Tornado Damage, Coverage Denied For Lack Of Mitigation

An elderly couple whose house in the Grace Chapel area was destroyed by a tornado in 2017 say that their insurance company has refused to pay for much of the damage.

A tornado and torrential rains on Oct. 23, 2017, caused multiple trees to fall and crash through the roof of a house on Clearlake Drive in the Northlakes community of southeastern Caldwell County owned by Robert Earl Abercrombie and Susie Gray Abercrombie.

But State Farm Fire and Casualty Company repeatedly denied a substantial amount of the Abercrombies’ insurance claims for the damage to the house and its contents on the grounds that the Abercrombies, who are in their 80s, "failed to reasonably mitigate" the damage by not climbing atop their roof and putting a tarp over it, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the Abercrombies.