Samek v. Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance , 341 Ill. App. 3d 1045 ( 2003 )

JUSTICE WOLFSON,

specially concurring:

I write this specially concurring opinion simply to add an observation to Justice South’s well-reasoned analysis.

I find in Reed v. Farmers Insurance Croup, 188 Ill. 2d 168 (1999), a clear signal that Fireman’s Fund Insurance Cos. v. Bugailiskis, 278 Ill. App. 3d 19 (1996), was correctly decided. The supreme court took pains to leave the Bugailiskis holding intact when it rested its decision on a section of the Insurance Code that requires rejection of awards over a certain limit in uninsured-motorist coverage cases.

It would have been an easy matter to criticize the Bugailiskis public policy analysis for arbitration clauses in underinsured-motorist policies. Instead, the supreme court left the appellate holding intact: “Notably, the statute concerning underinsured-motorist coverage, at issue in Bugailiskis, does not require a similar arbitration provision.” Reed, 188 Ill. 2d at 174.

Given the supreme court’s analysis in Reed and the decisions of appellate courts in the Second, Third, and Fifth Districts, not to mention the substantial majority of other states which have considered this issue, I think a single dissenting opinion is a slim reason for a change in direction.