XL SUED OVER DENIED SANDY CLAIM

California-based Fisker Automotive has filed a lawsuit in a New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, accusing XL Insurance America of improperly denying a $33m claim over the destruction of 338 Karma hybrid automobiles, which were submerged in five feet of seawater on a dock in New Jersey with the October 29 storm surge of superstorm Sandy. In its court filing, Fisker said that its policy carried a $100m limit on damages from named storms and that it had submitted its claim in a timely fashion. XL Insurance, a unit of Ireland-based, US-listed XL Group, denied the claim on December 20. Fisker attorney David Klein, a partner at San Francisco-based law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, told Reuters that the central issue in the case was whether the vehicles were in "transit", in which case certain sublimits could apply. At the time of the storm, the Fisker hybrids were parked on a Port Newark dock awaiting shipment to US dealers. The vehicles were among 10,000 vehicles that were destroyed at the port during Sandy.