Insurance - Insurable Interest - Measure of Recovery for Loss of a Limited Interest Notes and Comments 21 Boston University Law Review 1941

21 B.U. L. Rev. 151 (1941)
Insurance - Insurable Interest - Measure of Recovery for Loss of a Limited Interest

handle is hein.journals/bulr21 and id is 155 raw text is: NOTES AND COMMENTS

INSURANCE-INSURABLE INTEREST-MEASURE OF RECOVERY FOR Loss
OF A LIMITED INTEREST. Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance Co.'
v. Bolling, 10 S. E. (2d) 518, (Va.).
This is an action against a fire 'insurance company in which the
plaintiff seeks indemnity for loss covered by its policy. Andrew Bolling
and his son, Clarence, conducted a general merchandise business.
Clarence married Anne, the plaintiff, but because of troubled domestic
relations they were divorced. Property rights were adjusted, and both the
father and son turned over to Anne a stock of merchandise with which
Anne might carry on business for herself. Andrew Bolling gave his
daughter-in-law permission to conduct her business for as long a time
as she wished, in a building which he owned, without paying any rent.
He also expressed his intention to give the premises to her and her
children at a later day. Anne started business in the building and
obtained seven fire insurance policies on it aggregating twelve hundred
dollars. The. fee simple value of the building was twenty-five hundred
dollars. The building was destroyed by fire, and Anne now sues on one
of the policies for two hundred dollars.
The question before the Court on appeal was whether the plaintiff
had an insurable interest in the building and if so, what was the measure
of her recovery.
The Court held that she had an insurable interest in the building, and
stated the applicable rule as follows: Any person who has an interest
in the property, legal or equitable, or who stands in such a relation thereto
that its destruction would entail pecuniary loss upon him, has an insurable
interest to the extent of his interest therein, or of the loss to which he is
subjected by the casualty.' The Court reasoned that the plaintiff had a
pecuniary interest in the building in that the business which she conducted
in it, rent free, with her father-in-law's permission, was her livelihood.
She had no other means of supporting herself and her children, and that
fact was sufficient to support an insurable interest in the building. The
Court estimated the value of her insurable interest as the full face value
of the policy, two hundred dollars. The Court stated further that,
Policies of insurance are contracts of indemnity, and for that reason
the measure of recovery is the value of the interest lost.2 She had what
was in substance a life estate with the possibility of an estate in fee
simple, limited only in this-she could not alienate it unless she was
'Tilley v. Conn. Fire Ins. Co., 86 Va. 811, 11 S. E. 120 (1890).
'Thompson v. Gearheart, 137 Va. 427, 119 S. E. 67, 35 A. L. R. 36, (1923).

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