Legal: Mould - A rising concern.

(From Reinsurance)

Byline: Scott Casher.

Litigation involving allegations of property damage and bodily injury caused by toxic mould has been commenced in jurisdictions across the US, with the filings increasing rapidly in the past few years. A number of recent verdicts have demonstrated that there is potential for large damages awards in these cases. In Texas alone, the top five insurance carriers saw their mould claims quintuple in a year. The carriers paid more than $1bn on mould settlements in the past two years, according to the Texas Department of Insurance. While Texas and California have had the highest number of claims for mould, the bandwagon is moving east, with claims being asserted in Louisiana and Florida, and north, with claims recently asserted in New York and Canada.

While mould claims have recently been in the media spotlight, mould problems are older than civilisation itself. Mould and its remediation have been a concern since biblical times.

A claims explosion

So if mould has been around so long, what has caused the sudden explosion of claims? As usual, the answer depends on whom you ask. Some argue that concerns about mould are widely exaggerated. They attribute activity to the wide publicity of the certain court cases that were featured on television programmes and in publications. Others attribute the wave of mould claims to hysteria, fuelled by the mass media and plaintiff's lawyers. Some health professionals and industrial hygienists argue that mould is a serious health risk and that it is occurring more frequently in our modern buildings because of new building methods and materials. One fact remains: no controlled scientific study has proven a link between exposure to mould and the serious health problems being alleged by plaintiff's lawyers.

There are 100,000 scientifically identified species of mould. Around 1000 of these are common in the US. Most are not harmful; however, more than 100 mould species are known to potentially cause infection in humans.