American Bankers Ins. Co. of Florida v. Pickett, [Ms. SC-2024-0181, Feb. 14, 2025] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. 2025). The Court (Wise, J.; Stewart, C.J., and Sellers, Mitchell, and McCool, JJ., concur) reverses the Wilcox Circuit Court’s order denying American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida’s (“American Bankers”) motion to compel arbitration and stay claims filed against it by Francine Pickett.
Pickett claimed American Bankers negligently failed to inform her of the cancellation of an insurance binder issued in May 2022 when she applied for insurance on her trailer. She alleged that American Modern Property & Casualty Insurance Company invoked her failure to disclose American Bankers’s cancellation as a ground to refuse to pay for a September 2022 fire loss on a policy she purchased from American Modern in June 2022. Ms. **2-5.
Pickett argues that “she cannot be bound by the arbitration agreement [in the American Bankers binder] because she never received the permanent insurance policy and did not have an opportunity to accept or reject the arbitration agreement as provided in the notice and acknowledgment. Pickett also argues that she did nothing to manifest her assent to the terms of the arbitration agreement and that she ‘never paid a premium for the purported policy, never renewed the policy, and never filed a claim with’ American Bankers.” Ms. *20. The Court rejects this argument. Ms. *20-21, citing America’s Home Place, Inc. v. Rampey, 166 So. 3d 655, 660-61 (Ala. 2014) (“A plaintiff cannot simultaneously claim the benefits of a contract and repudiate its burdens and conditions.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court explains in regard to her negligence claim “[a]ny duty American Bankers owed Pickett with regard to the cancellation of the binder would arise from the binder itself.” Ms. **22-23.