Major US insurers are emphasising their no-nonsense approach to liability by rejecting householders’ insurance proposals where mould threatens to be a future problem. And the growing willingness of the insurers to abandon ship when the going gets tough has been supported by a Florida court. A judge has ruled that the state’s largest insurer, State Farm, can refuse to cover mould damage, despite the state government’s ban on such an exclusion.

Now reports say more than 200 other insurers have applied for the same exemption. Judge William Cave said Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation “cannot disprove endorsement forms without authority to do so”. Apparently, that authority doesn’t exist.

Insurers have lost billions in mould claims in Texas and California over the past few years, although Judge Cave said there have been few cases in houses in Florida, despite its humid climate.

Texan insurers are also refusing mould cover, with media reports suggesting as many as 100,000 home owners have been refused cover. The mould crisis has already driven a number of major insurers out of the householders’ market completely.