SOUTHEAST TITLE AND INSURANCE COMPANY, APPELLANT,
v.
JOHN ROBERT COLLINS, LEROY MOSES AND CITY PRODUCTS CORPORATION, A FLORIDA CORPORATION, APPELLEES
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Southeast Title and Insurance Company sought to characterize its automobile liability policy as excess insurance rather than primary coverage by arguing that the insured's employer's certificate of financial responsibility constituted 'other valid and collectible insurance' under the policy's excess clause. The court held that proof of financial responsibility is not equivalent to insurance and therefore does not trigger the excess coverage provision.
Proof of financial responsibility does not constitute insurance within the meaning of an excess insurance clause. Therefore, Southeast Title's policy coverage is primary, not excess, despite the policy language making it excess over 'any other valid and collectible insurance.'
“Insurance, of ancient origin, involves a contract, whereby, for an adequate consideration, one party undertakes to indemnify another against loss arising from certain specified contingencies or perils. Fundamentally and shortly, it is contractual security against possible anticipated loss. Risk is essential and, equally so, a shifting of its incidence from one to another.”
The court's definition of insurance, establishing that insurance requires a contractual shifting of risk, which proof of financial responsibility does not provide.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceSoutheast Title issued an auto liability policy to Leroy Moses, an employee of City Products Corporation. Moses was involved in a motor vehicle accide…
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The appellant, Southeast Title and Insurance Company, issued an automobile liability insurance policy to one Leroy Moses. Leroy Moses was an employee of appellee, City Products Corporation and was involved in a motor vehicle accident while driving a vehicle owned by City Products.
City Products Corporation did not own an insurance policy but was the holder of a certificate from the State Insurance Commissioner certifying that it had furnished satisfactory evidence pursuant to Section 324.171, F.S.1967, F.S.A., of possessing a net unencumbered capital of at least forty thousand dollars and would respond to the requirements of the Florida Financial Responsibility Law.
The question presented to the trial judge was whether or not the appellant, Southeast Title and Insurance Company had primary coverage for the accident. The trial judge ruled that it did.
The appellant, though admitting coverage to Leroy Moses and to the appellee since it was an organization legally responsible, urges that its coverage is excess because of the following provision in its policy:
“Insuring Agreement V shall be excess insurance over any other valid and collectible insurance.”
In so contending, the appellant is asking this court to equate proof of financial responsibility with insurance.
The policy wrtten by the plantiff contains no definitions of “other valid and collectible insurance.” As correctly stated by the appellee, insurance has been judicially defined as follows:
“Insurance, of ancient origin, involves a contract, whereby, for an adequate consideration, one party undertakes to indemnify another against loss arising from certain specified contingencies or perils. Fundamentally and shortly, it is contractual security against possible anticipated loss. Risk is essential and, equally so, a shifting of its incidence from one to another.” Epmeier v. United States, 7 Cir., 1952, 199 F.2d 508.
Proof of financial responsibility does not fit that definition. This conclusion compares with that reached in Home Indemnity *249Company v. Humble Oil & Refining Company, Tex.Civ.App.1958, 314 S.W.2d 861.
The summary judgment granted by the trial judge is therefore affirmed.
CROSS, C. J., and McCAIN, J., concur.
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State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Universal Atlas Cement Co., 406 So. 2d 1184 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981)…court construed the term “collectible insurance” to refer to an insurance policy, the proceeds of which are collectible as distinguished from uncollecti-ble due to the insurance company’s insolvency. In Southeast Title and Insurance Co. v. Collins, 226 So. 2d 247, 248 (Fla. 4th DCA 1969), cert. denied, 232 So. 2d 180 (Fla.), “other valid and collectible insurance” was defined as a contract whereby one party indemnifies another against loss from certain specified contingencies or perils. Self-insurance, even…
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- Epmeier v. United States, 199 F.2d 508 (7th Cir. 1952)