Exclusions to Coverage for Construction Defects


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Implicit in the concept of insurance is that the loss occur as a result of a fortuitous event not one planned, intended, or anticipated. Oddly, the fortuity principle never appears in insurance contracts. The principle is rooted in common law and in the statutes of at least six states. The fortuity principle has the effect of an exclusion. That is, an all-risk policy might provide coverage for all risks minus named exclusions, but never provides coverage for non-fortuitous events, even though non-fortuitous events are not named exclusions in the policy. For this reason, the fortuity principle is sometimes called the unnamed exclusion.


A fortuitous event is an event which so far as the parties to the contract are aware, is dependent on chance. It may be beyond the power of any human being to bring the event to pass; it may be within the control of third persons; it may even be a past event, such as the loss of a vessel, provided that the fact is unknown to the parties.