Sisters sue insurer after low bid of $5,000 for home damage, win $18 million

• A jury awarded the sisters $18 million in damages from an insurance company after their home was flooded.
• The sisters sued American Reliable after being offered only $5,000 for repairs.
• According to their lawyer, the house was uninhabitable, with the heating system destroyed.

Two California sisters’ home was severely flooded during a rainstorm in February 2019, but when they filed a claim with their insurance company, American Reliable, they were only offered $5,000 for the repairs.

Last month, a jury awarded the two men $18 million, after they took the company to court.

According to San Bernardino’s The Sun newspaper, Jennifer Garnier and Angela Toft were awarded $6 million for pain and suffering and $12 million in punitive damages in a verdict rendered by a San Bernardino County jury on April 18, following a six-week trial.

The lawsuit says the sisters’ home in Pinon Hills was damaged during a heavy rainstorm on Feb. 15, 2019, making it unlivable, as detailed in various news reports.

In a statement posted on Instagram, their attorney, Michael Hernandez of HHJ Trial Attorneys, said the damage caused electrical outages and destroyed the heating system.

The Los Angeles Times, citing Hernandez, reported that the sisters estimated they would need more than $100,000 to repair the damage.

However, the Times reported that an insurance adjuster offered only $5,000 for her claim.

According to court documents reviewed by The Times, the plaintiffs argued that American Reliable delayed inspecting their home.

The Times also reported that American Reliable admitted to an oversight in October 2023 and offered the sisters $140,000.

However, Garnier and Toft decided to continue with the trial, which ultimately resulted in a jury decision in their favor.

“We argued that when you knowingly place a family in an uninhabitable home, you cannot come back later and say you are not responsible for the consequences,” Hernandez said in the Instagram post.

According to the Times, the company told Garnier and Toft that it only became aware of the extent of the damage to the house while deliberating over evidence for the trial.

The Times reported that Garnier and Toft each received $3 million in emotional damages, $2 million in punitive damages from American Reliable and $10 million in punitive damages from Global Indemnity, the parent company of ‘American Reliable.

Global Indemnity, American Reliable and Hernandez did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment.

Last year, Business Insider reported that insurance companies were finding new ways to make money, often at the expense of their customers.

The paper, authored by Jathan Sadowski, a senior research fellow at Monash University, highlights how algorithmic systems are designed to maximize profits for insurance companies, leveraging the opacity of AI to give them deniability plausible.