Legal Question in Insurance Law in Pennsylvania

Re: Total property loss due to fire

Our office handles a lot of home fire cases and it's not unusual that homeowners have uninsured losses, sometimes for contents, other times because the coverage limits aren't enough to rebuild.

Whatever the case, your message suggests a couple possible routes to claim the additional damages. Assuming your insurance company has paid everything it owes (which depends on the policy terms, the facts of the loss, etc.) you can still claim damages in a "third party" suit. In fact, your insurance company may want to cooperate because it has the right to recover its payments if someone else was at fault. (That's called subrogation).

Often electrical fires result from a defective product, or improper electrical work by a contractor. In fact, I used to be an electrician and another attorney in our office is also an electrical engineer. So we can go after the manufacturer or contractor, as the case may be.

You also mentioned that you had an alarm system. It may be possible to show that the alarm malfunctioned and we've handled these kind of cases too. That type of claim can be tricky because the alarm didn't actually cause the fire, but presumably delayed the arrival of the fire company so it may have increased the damage.

I'd be happy to talk with you further about possible rights. We generally handle these cases on a contingent basis so there's be no obligation or fee for a consultation.