ALouisiana contractor is appealing a federal court decision in New Orleans that upheld a decision by the firm’s insurers that effectively denied coverage for millions of dollars in flood damage to a New Orleans hotel renovation project it worked on.

The McDonnel Group, a Metairie, La.-based construction manager and design-builder, is hoping a federal appeals court will overturn a decision earlier this year by U.S. District Court Judge Greg Guidry. He ruled that the deductible on the contractor’s builders’ risk policy is $3.4 million.

麦克唐纳集团（McDonnel Group）认为，这超过了该项目的320万美元的水损失，这使麦克唐纳（McDonnel）没有两家保险公司对荣格酒店的损害赔偿。

McDonnel says its two insurers,Starr盈余线和Lexington Insurance, a subsidiary of AIG, should have paid out $2.7 million after subtracting $500,000, what the contractor contends is the actual deductible on the policy, not the $3.4 million cited by the insurers.

But the insurers are pointing to the district court decision, which found the formula in the policy the companies used to calculate the $3.4 million deductible was “clear and unambiguous.”

该酒店于1920年代由Jung家族开业，晋升为“位于美国中心最有趣的城市的南部最大的会议酒店”。该酒店有几个不同的所有者，但在2006年卡特里娜飓风之后关闭。翻新工程使酒店在2018年重新开放。

At the heart of the dispute are two differing ways of calculating the deductible, with each side pointing to language in the policy to back up their arguments.

建筑商的风险免赔额通常基于百分比。但根据a 2018 reporton the website of Independent Agent Magazine, a publication for insurance brokers, the method of calculation varies, particularly in catastrophe-prone regions, and can have a dramatic impact on what the insured ends of paying out of pocket.

Signing onto McDonnel’s suit are the owner of the Jung Hotel in New Orleans, and two of McDonnel’s subcontractors on the project, All Star Electric and Mechanical Construction Co.

承包商的律师在其联邦法院上诉中写道：“至少，可扣除的规定相当容易受到不同的解释，因此必须解释为麦当劳的有利。”

work began in 2014 on the overall $140-million project. The 17-story structure holds 207 hotel rooms plus meeting spaces.

But McDonnel, its subcontractors and the hotel owner sustained millions of dollars in damages to the project after the project was flooded on Aug. 5, 2017, after a heavy rain.

保险公司拒绝索赔

The project’s insurers, Star Surplus Lines and Lexington, which had split coverage of the project on a 50/50 basis, rejected the claims for coverage by the contractor and the hotel owner, leading McDonnel to file its lawsuit six months later in February, 2018.

McDonnel, in its appeal, acknowledges the builders risk policy covered $86 million in work on the project, minus a deductible equal to 5% of that total value.

但是，承包商认为，如果洪水损失，这项政策要求将5％的扣除扣除扣除，而不是从$ 8600万美元中，而是从1000万美元的洪水量限额中扣除，从而获得了50万美元的扣除额。

反过来，这应该使两家保险公司都以270万美元的价格向麦克唐纳（McDonnel）支付，而酒店所有者荣格有限责任公司（Jung LLC）是承包商的律师。

For support, McDonnel cites the opinion submitted by the brokerage for the policy, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., which offered a similar argument.

However, attorneys for the two insurers contend the deductible damage to the project was always based on 5% of the total insured value.

while the insurance policy does specifically mention a $500,000 deductible in case of flood damage, it is also labeled as the “minimum” required deductible, with $10 million the limit of what the insurers would pay out for flood damage. That is separate from the total insured value of $86 million for the project, which, under the insurers' interpretation, is the basis used to determine the 5% deductible.

whatever its ruling, the federal appellate court’s decision could set a significant precedent, McDonnel’s attorneys contend.

In particular, the contractor’s legal team cited the “proper interpretation of a deductible provision” in an insurance policy with a “peril-specific sublimit,” combined with the percentage method of determining the deductible based on the risk at the time of the loss.

在联邦巡回赛的记录中只能找到两个案例，每个案件得出相反的结论。

麦克唐纳集团（McDonnel Group）的律师写道：“这项上诉将要求法院解决该巡回法院中没有州或联邦法院认为的新法律问题。”