AF recently facilitated its March Arbitrator Workshop webinar with 370 member arbitrators in attendance. The purpose of these 30-minute workshops is to drive decision quality by: 

• Sharing information with arbitrators on recent decision quality trends and drivers. 
• Answering questions arbitrators may have on hearing cases. 

The March topics and key takeaways included the following:

Statute of Limitations

• The Recovering Party must submit an arbitration filing prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations to avoid a jurisdictional exclusion from being asserted by the Responding Party.
• The Responding Party must assert the jurisdictional exclusion (statute of limitations) and support that the statute expired prior to the feature filing date.

Concurrent Coverage Disputes

• If a filing is submitted under a concurrent coverage right of recovery, but the arguments pertain to the Responding Party’s negligence, contact AF to have the case pulled. Or, if the Responding Party asserted the jurisdictional exclusion of “wrong right of recovery,” uphold the exclusion so the filing can be resubmitted under the correct right of recovery.
• Partial coverage denials should be raised as a damage dispute (Rule 2-5) but can be considered if raised as a jurisdictional exclusion. If raised as a jurisdictional exclusion, you will keep the filing in jurisdiction and address the applicable damages issue in the “proven damages.”

 Evidence Sharing

• Evidence sharing applies to both parties.
• Rule 2-1 outlines the Recovering Party’s requirement related to evidence sharing, while Rule 2-5 provides the Responding Party’s requirement.
• The Recovering Party is allowed to submit rebuttal evidence to refute the Responding Party’s damage dispute; however, the evidence submitted when initially filing the arbitration needs to support the amounts sought under each category, such as Auto Damage, Rental, Towing, etc.

Decision Quality – Disputed Damages

• Address the arguments raised by both the Responding Party, as well as any rebuttal presented by the filer.
• Address the evidence that does or does not support the Responding Party’s dispute and the Recovering Party’s rebuttal.
• Doing both of the above will demonstrate to the parties that their respective arguments and evidence were considered when ruling on the damage dispute.

Our next Arbitrator Workshop webinars will be held in May. View the schedule and enroll.