Kat Von D Being Sued Over Her 2010 House Fire

12 Comments

1. 1
   kczar
   Posted May 30, 2012 at 6:06 am

   She’s gross, but in this case, I think she shouldn’t have to pay back the money. I had a house fire several years ago. It was determined that the cause was lint buildup in the dryer hose (clean those out, people!) but my insurance still paid out for all the damage. Unless she purposely set the fire, I don’t understand how State Farm think they can ask for their money back.

2. 2
   notwithoutmytv
   Posted May 30, 2012 at 6:55 am

   If you need a place to stay, Kat, you can sleep at my place.

   Just don’t talk, ‘kay?

3. 3
   SuburBint
   Posted May 30, 2012 at 7:01 am

   It depends on how the policy is written. I used to manage an apartment complex, and we had very strict rules about candle use; if a fire had resulted due to a tenant not following the guidelines that they agreed to in the lease, neither their renter’s insurance nor our property insurance would have paid for the damage, the tenant would have been held responsible. I’m guessing that her policy had a clause in it regarding negligence or acting a fool or being an entitled biatch. Also, if she claimed that the fire had originated one way and later they found out that she hadn’t told the truth, that is insurance fraud.

4. 4
   snowshoecat
   Posted May 30, 2012 at 7:41 am

   Insurance companies don’t make their money by being stupid. A neighbor’s house burned under suspicious circumstances — he had this teensy little incident with insurance fraud before, and apparently the insurer wasn’t going to be taken twice (so picky). Sooooooo they paid on the condition that he rebuild the identical house on the same spot.

   The look at the insured as well as the damage, and it would seem that La Kat made them suspicious.

5. 5
   mere2142
   Posted May 30, 2012 at 8:53 am

   My house (prior to me owning it) was burned down in a fire in 2005 from a cat knocking over an unattended candle and the insurance policy paid the owner to rebuild.

6. 6
   shannyt
   Posted May 30, 2012 at 11:30 am

   I had home owners insurance with the same company for 17 years, never filed a claim. Christmas of 2008 we went out of town the day after Christmas only to come back to our house being destroyed by vandalism and theft. There was over 100K worth of damage and major theft, anything that wasn’t solen was destroyed. In the investigation the police determined it was high school kids that basically held three day party while we were gone. They started tracking them down and each and every one of them said our teenage son had given them permission to party in the house and take whatever they wanted. That his parents had insurance and it was no big deal. It took us nearly 9 months before we could get the insurance to start paying our claim. We had to have our son take a lie detectors test, which is passed and it was determined he had nothing to do with it, other than to mention to a friend that we were going to our cabin and would be gone until New Years. Nobody was ever arrested. Our insurance was cancelled and to this day our homeowners policy is considered a high risk policy. We pay nearly $3K a year, when it use to be less than $700. We only recouped about half the money from insurance. My husband had to cash out his 401K to get us going until the insurance company started paying out. Most miserable experience of my life. I *hate* insurance companies.

7. 7
   c8h10n4o2
   Posted May 30, 2012 at 12:00 pm

   So I did a little digging and found a link to an insurance website that says that the suit says that “Defendants had a legal and contractual duty to not engage in any activity which would cause damage or peril to the premises or its contents” under a Duty to Use Due Care clause, and that this was a rental for commercial purposes, so it’s not going to be like a standard home or renter’s insurance agreement.

   Not sure if this’ll post, but here’s the link:
   http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2012/05/30/state-farm-says-house-fire-was-due-to-kat-von-ds-n

8. 8
   labowner
   Posted May 30, 2012 at 12:15 pm

   And you didn’t go after the families of the kids via civil court shannyt?

9. 9
   shannyt
   Posted May 30, 2012 at 1:10 pm

   To be honest we were so weary by the time it was said and done that we didn’t do much of anything except try and get back to a normal way of life. It was a pretty dark period for us. My oldest (the one accused) started skipping school and eventually dropped out at 16 and got his GED. He had a lot of issues with some of the kids and threats. I never thought of filing a civil suit actually. We did try to seek legal help against the local police department since we had several neighbors call the police saying something was going on and all they did was drive by and determine that all was quiet. Which was odd since when we got home all the windows in the back of the house were broken. There were contents of the inside of the house in our yard. We couldn’t find an attorney willing to take on a the case. We were told it’s next to impossible to sue the city and we were only going to cause more problems. So we just let it be. The good news is my oldest is 20 now, has a fairly good job and is considering going back to school.

10. 10
    Brianna Quinn
    Posted May 30, 2012 at 4:39 pm

    Kat tweeted today that she was on a book tour and wasn’t home when the fire started.

11. 11
    sarcasatire
    Posted May 30, 2012 at 4:58 pm

    State Farm is usually pretty cool. I have personal items insurance (for my electronics, etc.) and they seem to pay, no questions asked. My mom dropped her computer and while it wasn’t broken, it was damaged. They said it was a $600 computer and to pay someone $150 to inspect and then whatever they charge to repair it would be silly. So they gave us the full $600 on a computer we’d had for 4 years and insured with them for two years at around $10/year.

12. 12
    MtnMama
    Posted May 30, 2012 at 6:46 pm

    So my dirty little secret is that I was a fire claims adjustor and PR person for State Farm in another life. I’m certain this lawsuit was discussed at the highest levels because of the celebrity aspect involved. They must really think she was grossly negligent (beyond simple negligence, which is what most people are when they accidentally start a fire with candles.)
    Add to that the facts: she bought a renter’s policy (also known as a Homeowner’s policy) but she was apparently using the residence for commercial purposes (which essentially renders the policy null and void back to day one since the buyer supposedly lied about the intended use of the property), the claim was nearly a million dollars, and SF won’t bother going after someone if it doesn’t think it will win. They’ve weighed all sides of this (PR, etc.) and decided to sue anyway so it’s obviously worth it to them to pursue.
    Insurance is a business. Period. Don’t let the happy little commercials convince you otherwise.