In most property insurance coverage litigation, the parties engage experts to elucidate the issues in the case. This is particularly true when there are multiple causes of loss, covered and not covered, that combine to cause the damage claimed. In Texas, when two causes of loss combine to cause damage, courts apply the concurrent causation doctrine, which states:
[W]hen “excluded and covered events combine to cause” a loss and “the two causes cannot be separated,” concurrent causation exists and “the exclusion is triggered” such that the insurer has no duty to provide the requested coverage. But when a covered event and an excluded event “each independently cause” the loss, “separate and independent causation exists, “and the insurer must provide coverage despite the exclusion.” JAW The Pointe, LLC v. Lexington Ins. Co., (Tex. 2015).
