2011 Missouri Revised Statutes
TITLE XXIV BUSINESS AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Chapter 379 Insurance Other Than Life
Section 379.140. Company not to deny value--full amount of policy to be paid.

379.140. In all suits brought upon policies of insurance against loss or damage by fire hereafter issued or renewed, the defendant shall not be permitted to deny that the property insured thereby was worth at the time of the issuing of the policy the full amount insured therein on said property; and in case of total loss of the property insured, the measure of damage shall be the amount for which the same was insured, less whatever depreciation in value, below the amount for which the property is insured, the property may have sustained between the time of issuing the policy and the time of the loss, and the burden of proving such depreciation shall be upon the defendant; and in case of partial loss, the measure of damage shall be that portion of the value of the whole property insured, ascertained in the manner prescribed in this chapter, which the part injured or destroyed bears to the whole property insured.

(RSMo 1939 5930)

Prior revisions: 1929 5819; 1919 6229; 1909 7020

(1970) Valued policy laws are not limited to insurance against loss by fire of improvements on real property but apply as well to policies of fire insurance on personal property. Duckworth v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 452 S.W.2d 280 (Mo.App.).

(1964) Where fire insurance policies are issued by more than one company upon the same property, no insurer can deny property was worth aggregate of several amounts for which it was insured, in absence of willful fraud or misrepresentation; measure of damages in case of total loss is amount for which property was insured, less depreciation. MFA Mutual Ins. Co. v. Southwest Baptist Col., Inc., 281 S.W.2d 797 (Mo.Sup.Ct.).

Annotation Copyright Missouri Joint Committee on Legislative Research