Collapse

The meaning of the term collapse has undergone evolution both as an exclusion and as an insured peril under standard property insurance forms.  Courts in the various jurisdictions have taken one of two general approaches in determining what constitutes a collapse.  The most longstanding view is that collapse is a plain and unambiguous term susceptible of only a single meaning:  "the sudden falling-in, loss of shape, or flattening into a mass of rubble" of a building. While courts taking this view do not always require that a building fall completely to the ground, they generally require a great deal of damage before collapse coverage will be triggered.

In contrast, some courts have found collapse to be ambiguous.  Acknowledging that the traditional definition is one valid interpretation of the word, these courts nevertheless have expanded the definition to include "substantial impairment of the structural integrity" of a building.  Upon a finding that two reasonable constructions of the word are available, these courts have adopted the broad meaning because that meaning typically is most favorable to the insured.

Unfortunately, the term structural integrity is not explicitly defined in the case law.  A certain amount of disparity therefore exists among the "broad view" courts with respect to both the amount and type of damage necessary to trigger coverage.  Some of these courts actually require caving or falling in before they will find a building's structural integrity to be impaired.  Others require only a danger of collapse, or, in a few cases, an attenuated possibility of collapse.  Additionally, they may or may not require that the damage occur or be likely to occur "suddenly."

Over the past decade or so, the broad definition of collapse attempted to establish itself as the majority rule in the coverage jurisprudence.  That trend, however, has met with resistance in recent years and effectively has been reversed.  Judicial reacquisition of the traditional collapse definition has been prompted both by the return of  "plain-language" contract interpretation principles and by changes in policy language designed to combat artificially expanded coverage.  Recognizing the disparity between jurisdictions as to what is and is not a collapse, the Insurance Services Office (ISO) has altered the language of the former collapse provisions to nullify the broad approach.