{"id":906147,"date":"2026-09-23T14:44:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T20:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=906147"},"modified":"2026-09-23T14:44:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T20:44:56","slug":"earth-movement-exclusion-adjacent-construction-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/earth-movement-exclusion-adjacent-construction-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"When the Ground Gives Way, So Does Coverage: New York Applies Earth Movement Exclusion to Adjacent Construction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Tracey Jordan and Joshua Tumen | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propertyinsurancelawobserver.com\/2026\/09\/14\/when-the-ground-gives-way-so-does-coverage-new-york-applies-earth-movement-exclusion-to-adjacent-construction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Cozen O&#8217;Connor<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Major construction on a crowded urban lot almost inevitably causes issues with adjoining property owners.\u00a0 A recent New York decision confirms that when the earth moves, earth movement exclusions may preclude coverage. In\u00a0<em>Gogam v. Admiral Indemnity Co<\/em>., 2026 WL 2595045 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Aug. 21, 2026), the Supreme Court, New York County, granted the insurer\u2019s motion to dismiss, holding that an insured\u2019s claim for cracking and settlement damage caused by construction next door fell squarely within the policy\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/earth-movement-exclusion-affect-construction-defect-cases\/\">earth movement exclusion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The insured owned a commercial property whose west wall shared a foundation slab with, and immediately bordered, an adjacent building. Beginning in 2020, the neighboring building underwent an extensive renovation that included gutting its interior, adding two stories, and lowering its basement below the water table. Before construction began, engineers had warned that the basement work, underpinning, and dewatering would impact the insured\u2019s premises. After construction started, the property sustained interior and exterior cracking and a partial ceiling collapse. No party disputed that the damage was caused by the neighboring building\u2019s construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The insurer denied coverage based on the policy\u2019s earth movement exclusion, which provided that the insurer \u201cwill not pay for loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by\u201d earth movement, including \u201c[e]arth sinking (other than sinkhole collapse), rising or shifting including soil conditions which cause settling, cracking or other disarrangement of foundations or other parts of realty.\u201d Critically, the exclusion applied \u201cregardless of whether any of the above \u2026 are naturally occurring or due to man-made or other artificial causes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The insured argued that its claim was meritorious and that coverage should apply, in part because the insurer had authorized and issued an initial payment before disclaiming. The court disagreed. Relying on the plain terms of the exclusion, the court held that the damage was caused directly or indirectly by earth movement and was therefore excluded. Both the insured\u2019s and the insurer\u2019s experts attributed the loss to some combination of vibration, excavation, underpinning, and dewatering associated with the adjacent construction. As the insurer\u2019s expert put it, \u201c[n]o matter which factors contributed, or in what proportion each factor was involved, they are all related to the construction work\u201d next door. The court concluded it did not matter which mechanism predominated, because each was a form of excluded earth movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The court\u2019s analysis rested on well-established New York authority. In&nbsp;<em>Bentoria Holdings, Inc. v. Travelers Indemnity Co<\/em>., 20 N.Y.3d 65 (2012), the Court of Appeals held that an earth movement exclusion with the same operative language \u2014 expressly reaching \u201cman made or other artificial causes\u201d \u2014 is unambiguous and excludes damage caused by \u201cthe intentional removal of earth by humans,\u201d such as excavation. That holding closed the gap left by&nbsp;<em>Pioneer Tower Owners Assn. v. State Farm Fire &amp; Cas. Co<\/em>., 12 N.Y.3d 302 (2009), in which the Court found a bare earth movement exclusion did not unambiguously apply to excavation. The&nbsp;<em>Gogam<\/em>&nbsp;court also relied on&nbsp;<em>3502 Partners LLC v. Great American Insurance Co. of New York<\/em>, 204 A.D.3d 525 (1st Dep\u2019t 2022), which applied&nbsp;<em>Bentoria<\/em>&nbsp;to dismiss a similar claim at the pleading stage and rejected the argument that a covered \u201cvibrations\u201d theory could avoid the exclusion, reasoning that \u201c[e]ven if vibrations caused the damage, the excavation was still a contributing cause of the damage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on the court\u2019s holding in&nbsp;<em>Gogam<\/em>, first-party property damage caused by excavation, underpinning, dewatering, or vibration from adjacent construction is precluded from coverage under an earth movement exclusion that expressly reaches man-made causes. The decision is a useful reminder for insurers of the importance of exclusion wording: the \u201cnaturally occurring or \u2026 man-made\u201d qualifier, paired with \u201cdirectly or indirectly\u201d causation language, allows the exclusion to reach the entire loss even where a covered cause is alleged to have contributed. Insurers should also note that the court enforced the exclusion notwithstanding the insurer\u2019s earlier payments, underscoring the value of a properly worded reservation of rights while a claim is investigated. Ultimately,&nbsp;<em>Gogam<\/em>&nbsp;confirms that a precisely worded earth movement exclusion \u2014 reaching man-made causes and expressly barring direct or indirect earth movement \u2014 remains a viable defense for first-party property insurers in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When one of your cases is in need of a construction expert, estimates, insurance appraisal or umpire services in defect or insurance disputes &#8211; please call Advise &amp; Consult, Inc. at 801.641.8304, or email <a href=\"mailto:experts@adviseandconsult.net\">experts@adviseandconsult.net<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tracey Jordan and Joshua Tumen | Cozen O&#8217;Connor Major construction on a crowded urban lot almost inevitably causes issues with adjoining property owners.\u00a0 A recent New York decision confirms that when the earth moves, earth movement exclusions may preclude coverage. In\u00a0Gogam v. Admiral Indemnity Co., 2026 WL 2595045 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Aug. 21, 2026), the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/earth-movement-exclusion-adjacent-construction-new-york\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">When the Ground Gives Way, So Does Coverage: New York Applies Earth Movement Exclusion to Adjacent Construction<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10721],"tags":[9895,9582,22],"class_list":["post-906147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance","tag-advise-consult","tag-earth-movement-exclusion","tag-insurance","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When the Ground Gives Way, So Does Coverage: New York Applies Earth Movement Exclusion to Adjacent Construction - Advise &amp; 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