Policy Provisions and Coverage Analysis
Read every policy with DICE: Declarations (named insured, locations, limits, deductibles, forms), Insuring agreement (the promise and covered perils), Conditions (duties after loss, appraisal, other insurance, subrogation, suit limitation), and Exclusions. Definitions decide more disputes than exclusions do: "occurrence," "property damage," "bodily injury," "insured," "your work," and "actual cash value" are where arguments actually live.
Structure matters: a named-peril form covers listed causes of loss; a special ("all risk") form covers everything not excluded. Grants are read broadly, exclusions narrowly, and ambiguity is construed against the insurer.
Valuation: actual cash value (replacement cost less depreciation) versus replacement cost (usually conditioned on repair or replacement within a stated period). Coinsurance in commercial property is a limit-to-value test - if the limit falls below the required percentage of value, recovery is reduced proportionally, even on a partial loss.
Traps seen in questions: (1) treating a percentage hurricane/named-storm deductible as a percentage of the loss - it is applied to the dwelling (Coverage A) limit; (2) applying a deductible per item instead of per occurrence; (3) assuming a limit is the amount payable rather than a cap; (4) ignoring how coinsurance reduces a partial-loss payment; (5) overlooking anti-concurrent-causation wording when a covered and an excluded peril combine; (6) forgetting that "other insurance" clauses and loss-settlement provisions can change who pays first.
Rule of thumb: on any storm claim with a special deductible, calculate the deductible from the declarations-page limit, apply it to the covered loss, and show the arithmetic clearly in the claim file.