Natural Disaster, Flood, and Wildfire Subrogation

MWL handles subrogation litigation for explosion, fire, water, environmental contamination, and natural disaster losses, which includes wildfire disasters such as the Woolsey and Bobcat wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and similar large property damage claims.

For more than 30 years MWL has been the nation’s premier subrogation law firm pursuing the hard-to-recognize subrogation potential attendant to natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, tornados, wildfires, and even earthquakes. We have obtained substantial seven and eight-figure recoveries for our many of our clients who have paid losses for damage to homes and businesses arising out of natural disasters across the nation. The claims history of most domestic insurance carriers is littered with billion dollar claims as a result of catastrophic losses caused by natural disasters. When property damage results from a natural phenomenon, the resulting losses can be enough to put many insurance companies into receivership. With no third parties or obvious subrogation potential, these mammoth claim payments often disappear into the night and the claims are closed and forgotten. However, rather than throwing in the towel, these losses present tremendous recovery potential for the proactive claims professional. It is said that opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Nowhere is that adage more true than when it comes to subrogating natural disasters. If a carrier is willing to invest the time and effort necessary to investigate third-party potential in the face of disaster, it is possible to turn tragedy into triumph and turn back the hands of time.

MWL has handled and/or obtained recoveries in disasters including multiple California wildfires, Oklahoma earthquakes, Florida sinkholes, Texas freeze damage, and so on. When utility and power companies, excavation companies, fracking companies, government agencies, or private corporations cause catastrophic loss attendant to a natural disaster, MWL is there to promptly investigate and marshal the evidence necessary to hold the wrongdoers culpable. Few would think that we could hold the city of Hayward, the county of Alameda, and the state of California liable for flood damage to thousands of vehicles at an auto auction based on a theory of inverse condemnation. Few would think to hold a fracking company liable for property damage to homes occurring miles away at the hands of an earthquake. Few would pursue prior landowners, construction companies, power companies and government entities for sinkholes, frozen water pipes, building fires, and the like. But at MWL, we have recovered tens of millions of subrogation dollars doing exactly that. Get us involved early to give us the best chance of recovering you and your insured’s significant claim payments resulting from an act of God – but made deadly by the action or inactions of men.