This brings up the old question about intent. If you have a kitchen fire, and by all accounts it appears to be an accidental fire, i.e. burner left on, insured admits to forgetting about the operating burner, do you classify it as accidental or undetermined? What if you classify it as accidental and then you find out later that the insured had prior to the fire event, companies come out and give estimates for a kitchen remodel? Does that change your opinion as to the classification? It may be just a coincidence, but I think most of us in this field are not big fans of coincidences.

I know several investigators who leave certain fires that are a result of a human act undetermined for just this reason. So long story short, I can see a claim being denied based upon and undetermined classification on the part of the investigator. However, if the insurance company can't classify the fire other than undetermined, I do not see how they can deny the claim unless there is some verbiage in the policy that I'm not aware of. It is my opinion, which isn't worth much, that the insurance company is definitely opening themselves up for a bad faith claim.