Insurance Commissioner v. State ex rel. Department of Insurance

411 So. 2d 269, 1982 Fla. App. LEXIS 19450
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMarch 11, 1982
DocketNo. ZZ-162
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 411 So. 2d 269 (Insurance Commissioner v. State ex rel. Department of Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Insurance Commissioner v. State ex rel. Department of Insurance, 411 So. 2d 269, 1982 Fla. App. LEXIS 19450 (Fla. Ct. App. 1982).

Opinion

McCORD, Judge.

This appeal is from a final order approving and directing payment of certain funds by The Florida Department of Insurance as ancillary receiver of Imperial Insurance Company to the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association. We affirm.

In 1975, appellant, Insurance Commissioner. of the State of California (hereafter referred to as domiciliary receiver) was appointed by the Superior Court of Los Ange-les County, California, as conservator of Imperial Insurance Company (hereafter referred to as Imperial) for rehabilitation purposes. Immediately following this appointment, the Florida Department of Insurance (hereafter referred to as ancillary receiver) was appointed by the court below as the ancillary receiver of Imperial and was directed to take possession of all property and assets of Imperial located in Florida. The court below further enjoined all persons from, among other things, maintaining or instituting any action against Imperial.

The ancillary receiver, pursuant to the lower court’s order, came into control of certain premium money located in Florida which had been previously paid by insureds to Imperial’s general agent in Florida. In an effort to obtain equitable treatment for all insureds and claimants, wherever located, and in an effort to foster the rehabilitation of Imperial, the domiciliary receiver and the ancillary receiver entered into an agreement whereby the ancillary receiver agreed to cause premium money to be remitted to the domiciliary receiver. We note that the agreement did not contain a time certain for the remittance. In return, the domiciliary receiver agreed that Florida policy holders, claimants and creditors would be treated equally with all other policy holders, claimants and creditors and that it would handle, defend and pay all proper Florida claims in the regular course of business without preference to anyone else. In addition, the agreement contained the following clause:

In the event the present conservatorship status of Imperial/Signal is changed either in California or in Florida to one involving liquidation of the company due to insolvency, this agreement will be automatically terminated and dissolved without the necessity of further action by either party hereto.

Both the court below and the California court approved this agreement, and the court below modified its order appointing ancillary receiver to permit Florida agents to remit premium money to the domiciliary receiver. Then, on instructions of the ancillary receiver, the managing general agent of Imperial for Florida, on March 19, 1976, issued and mailed to the domiciliary receiver a check in the amount of $1,322,934.67, which consisted of all premium funds held in Florida. Shortly thereafter, the domiciliary receiver advised the ancillary receiver that “there has been no progress in attempts to rehabilitate the companies,” that “[a]ll indications point to the companies be[271]*271ing in worse condition than they [formerly] appeared to be,” and that it may be “eventually necessary to liquidate these companies.” The ancillary receiver, fearing that Imperial was headed for liquidation and that, if such occurred, Florida claims against Imperial under California statutes would be given unequal treatment with California claims, had payment stopped on the check.

It later developed that the ancillary receiver’s fears of liquidation, which had been engendered by the aforesaid letter from the domiciliary receiver, were justified. In January 1978 the receivers were appointed domiciliary and ancillary receivers of Imperial for purposes of liquidation.

This appeal arose from the domiciliary receiver’s opposition to ancillary receiver’s motion to the trial court for authority to use the aforesaid money over which it had control to reimburse the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (hereinafter referred to as FIGA) for claims-handling expenses incurred during the ancillary liquidation proceedings.

FIGA is an organization created under Part II, Chapter 631, Florida Statutes, whose members consist of all persons, with some exceptions, who write insurance and are licensed to transact business in Florida. The purpose of Part II, Chapter 631, Florida Statutes, is in part to provide a mechanism for payment of covered claims under certain insurance policies to avoid excessive delay in payment and to avoid financial loss to claimants or policy holders because of the insolvency of a member insurer. See § 631.51, Florida Statutes. FIGA was created in order to accomplish this purpose and to protect policy holders of solvent insurers from higher rates by providing for the payment of FIGA’s claims-handling expenses, on a priority basis, from the insolvent insurer’s Florida assets. §§ 631.271 and 631.397, Florida Statutes (1979).

The domiciliary receiver’s opposition to payment of FIGA’s claims-handling expense from the premium monies held in Florida is predicated upon its view that such payment will constitute preferential treatment of FIGA’s claim as opposed to other claims against Imperial. It appears that these funds are primarily, if not entirely, the funds covered by the aforesaid check upon which payment was stopped. The domiciliary receiver contends that these funds should have been sent to it pursuant to the foregoing agreement and that, therefore, they should not now be paid to FIGA on its claim but should be transmitted to the domiciliary receiver for disbursement by it according to the California statutes; that the trial court’s order authorizing payment of FIGA’s claims-handling expenses “condones and approves an intentional and willful breach” of the agreement. The agreement, however, was predicated upon a representation of the domiciliary receiver which was placed in one of the agreement’s “whereas” clauses as follows:

[T]he California Conservator [Domiciliary Receiver] has determined that liquidation of [Imperial] is not indicated and that the company has assets sufficient to be operated under a long-term conservator-ship. . . . (Emphasis supplied.)

Thus, it appears that the agreement was predicated on a mistake of fact which was indicated when, immediately after sending the remittance, the domiciliary receiver advised the ancillary receiver of the poor financial condition of Imperial and the possibility of liquidation and was confirmed when liquidation subsequently occurred. Therefore, the trial court was correct in directing that FIGA’s claims-handling expenses be reimbursed from Florida premium funds of Imperial which were mar-shalled by the Florida ancillary receiver pursuant to orders of the court. In Clark v. Williard, 294 U.S. 211, 55 S.Ct. 356, 79 L.Ed. 865 (1935), the Supreme Court said:

Every state has jurisdiction to determine for itself the liability of property within its territorial limits to seizure and sale under the process of its courts.... All that Montana does by the decree under review is to impose upon such ownership the lien of judgments and executions in conformity with local law. In this there is no denial to the statutes of Iowa or to [272]*272its judicial proceedings of the faith and credit owing to them under the Constitution of the United States.

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Bluebook (online)
411 So. 2d 269, 1982 Fla. App. LEXIS 19450, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/insurance-commissioner-v-state-ex-rel-department-of-insurance-fladistctapp-1982.