This is the denial letter itself. Not a summary, not a quotation of one: the document the insurance company sent, filed as an exhibit to a lawsuit and therefore public. It survives because the policyholders sued and their lawyer attached it to the complaint.
Sent on May 19, 2025 from State Farm Insurance Companies, Fire Claims, P.O. Box 106169, Atlanta, GA 30348-6169. Every quote and figure below is read off that document. The street address, policy number and claim number are removed; the party names are the public case caption.
| Who wrote it | State Farm Fire and Casualty Company |
|---|---|
| Who signed it | The State Farm representative who met the insured on May 8, 2025; name redacted. |
| Who received it | Aiken Blvd LLC, the named plaintiff in the public case caption. The letter is addressed to an individual whose name is redacted here. |
| Who was on the policyholder side | Howard Stallings Law Firm filed the suit for the owner. |
| What it is | A full denial. State Farm concluded Hurricane Helene did not damage the roof, and that the rotted wood and mold found there fall under policy exclusions. |
| What the carrier calls the form | Businessowners Coverage Form |
| Where | Warrenville, Aiken County, South Carolina. The building is a 3,893 square foot commercial property with five tenants, insured on a businessowners form rather than a homeowners policy. |
| When the loss happened | September 27, 2024, as Hurricane Helene moved inland across South Carolina |
| When the letter was sent | May 19, 2025, 234 days after the date of loss and 11 days after the site meeting on May 8, 2025 |
| Why, in the letter’s own reasoning | The letter gives one causation finding, that the storm did not damage the roof, and then attributes the damage that is there to conditions the policy excludes: fungi and wet or dry rot, wear and tear, decay and deterioration, and seepage lasting 14 days or more. |
| Amount paid | None. This is a full denial, not a partial one |
|---|---|
| Property | A 3,893 square foot commercial building with five tenant suites |
| Policy form | Businessowners Coverage Form, not a homeowners policy |
| Days from loss to denial | 234 |
| Days from site meeting to denial | 11 |
This section is our reading of the document above, not the letter's words.
What it does for the insurance company
The letter does its work in a single sentence and then spends three pages on policy text. The finding that matters is that there was no storm damage to the roof, because once that is established every other condition found up there belongs to the building rather than to the hurricane. Rot, mold, wear and seepage are all conditions, and conditions are excluded. The anti-concurrent-causation wording then closes the last door: even if the storm contributed, the excluded event still defeats the claim.
What it means for the homeowner
A commercial landlord with five tenants got nothing for a roof after a hurricane, on the strength of one site visit and a conclusion reached 11 days later. The complaint alleges the roof was in great condition before Helene and had been inspected by State Farm's own underwriting department before the policy issued. That is the pressure point: the same company looked at this roof twice and reached opposite conclusions about its condition.
- 1 The whole letter rests on one finding: no storm damage to the roof. Ask for the inspection report, the photographs and the date, because everything else follows from it.
- 2 If the carrier's underwriting department inspected the property before issuing the policy, request that report too. An underwriting inspection is the insurer's own record of the roof's condition before the loss.
- 3 The seepage exclusion here requires leakage over a period of 14 days or more. That is a factual claim about duration, and it is testable against when the storm hit and when the damage was found.
- 4 Anti-concurrent-causation wording means you cannot win by showing the storm was a contributing cause. You have to show the loss was caused by the storm rather than by an excluded condition.
- 5 This is a businessowners policy, not a homeowners policy. The exclusions are similar but the forms and the deadlines differ, and in South Carolina the contract limitation period and S.C. Code Title 38, Chapter 59 apply.
The denial is dated May 19, 2025 for a September 27, 2024 loss: 234 days. The site meeting that produced the determination happened on May 8, and the letter went out 11 days later. The document spends one sentence on what was found and roughly three pages reproducing exclusions.
Aiken Blvd LLC v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, No. 2025CP0202475 (S.C. Ct. Common Pleas, Aiken County), removed to No. 1:25-cv-13076-JFA (D.S.C.), Entry 1-1, Exhibit 4 at 72 to 75 of 89. Read the filed document ↗
A complaint states one side's allegations and the case is pending; nothing here has been decided by a court. Not legal advice; consult an attorney about your specific claim.
Found by searching the federal court record for denial-letter language rather than for cases. This is the second letter in the archive we hold as a document rather than a quotation, and the first from South Carolina.
Aiken Blvd LLC v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, No. 2025CP0202475 (S.C. Ct. Common Pleas, Aiken County), removed to No. 1:25-cv-13076-JFA (D.S.C.), Entry 1-1, Exhibit 4 at 72 to 75 of 89. · public record ↗
Quotes are verbatim from the cited public record. Case status and statute summaries drafted August 2026; verify against the current docket and statute. Not legal advice; consult an attorney about your specific claim.
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