Rhode Island Property Study Guide

Rhode Island does not summarise its fire-insurance rules in a code section — it enacts the policy itself and prints the text, so the clocks you need are contract conditions sitting in the General Laws. Around that: a weather regulation with two prohibitions, and a residual market filed in a chapter nobody would search.

The standard fire policy is printed in the statute

Rhode Island prescribes a standard fire policy in three sections: §27-5-1 prescribes the form, §27-5-2 requires compliance, and §27-5-3 prints the policy text itself. A candidate hunting for “Rhode Island’s proof-of-loss statute” will not find one — the number is a line in a form the legislature happened to enact.

• Proof of loss: 60 days after the loss, and the proof must be “signed and sworn to by the insured.” Contrast the accident and health side, where §27-18-3(a)(7) allows 90 days.
• The insurer pays 60 days after the proof of loss is received — the same number, running from the opposite end.
• Appraisal is elective and bilateral — triggered only where insured and insurer “shall fail to agree” on actual cash value or the amount of loss, and then only “on the written demand of either.”
• Cancellation by the insurer: 30 days’ written notice, cut to 10 days for nonpayment of premium, plus 10 days to a designated mortgagee not named as the insured.

One absence matters as much. No valued policy law appears in chapter 27-5, and §27-5-3 settles loss on actual cash value — a total loss is not automatically paid at the face amount.

The cancellation section that contains no cancellation numbers

Now the trap. §27-5-3.4 is captioned for cancellation and nonrenewal of the standard fire policy, and it carries no day counts and no grounds. Its three subsections are purely procedural: service of notice (hand delivery, or first class mail with a USPS certificate of mailing, which “shall be sufficient proof of notice”); notice to both a mortgagee payee and the named insured; and the insured’s own right to cancel by serving the company or “its producer who issued the policy.” The day counts it refers to are the ones “provided by the policy,” which sends you back to §27-5-3.

Windstorm banned, hurricane capped, and a window that closes late

Both catastrophe rules that matter are in 230-RICR-20-05-13. Under §13.4, “Windstorm deductibles may not be included in residential property insurance policies” — an outright prohibition, not a cap. The hurricane deductible is allowed but capped: the maximum that may be offered or included in a residential property policy is 5 percent of the insured value of the dwelling — Coverage A — not of the loss. Disclosure must include at least two practical examples of how it works. Read the scope word twice: both rules reach residential policies only.

Section 13.5 supplies the trigger, and it is lopsided. The window commences with a National Weather Service hurricane warning for the applicable part of the state, and concludes 24 hours after the termination of the last hurricane warning for ANY part of the state.

Flood is a notice duty, not an offer duty

§27-5-3.6 requires a clear and conspicuous notice — on issuance and again at each renewal of a policy covering standard fire insurance — that the policy may not cover flood damage, that NFIP coverage may be available through FEMA, and that policyholders should contact their insurer or producer. Nothing in Rhode Island law requires an insurer to offer flood coverage — candidates trained on offer-and-signed-rejection patterns reach for the wrong verb here.

The FAIR Plan is in the riot-reinsurance chapter

Rhode Island’s residual property market has its statutory hook at §27-33-11 — inside chapter 27-33, the Federal Riot Reinsurance Reimbursement Fund. The programme runs under 230-RICR-20-05-11, and one body carries three names: the Basic Property Insurance Inspection and Placement Program, the Rhode Island Joint Reinsurance Association, and the Rhode Island FAIR Plan.

Two features get tested. Participation is compulsory for all domestic insurers and all insurers licensed to write the specified classes, with writings, expenses and losses distributed equitably — an insurer cannot opt out. And eligibility takes two things: inability to secure the insurance in the normal market and satisfaction of the Association’s underwriting standards on condition, maintenance, occupancy and tax status.

Two more numbers beside the fire policy

A mortgage holder is not entitled to payment for a loss to a covered building of less than $3,500 unless no liability exists as to the mortgagor (§27-5-3.2), and the same section bars a lender from requiring property insurance in excess of the replacement cost of the buildings. Rating is file-and-use under §27-44-6: rates are filed at least 30 days before the proposed effective date and may then be used — but a request for supporting information restarts the clock.