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When the Vietnamese Restaurant at Franklin and Curtis burned down in 2010, owners Dat Vuong and Kim Li thought they had a fire insurance policy to cover the damage.
They were in for a rude surprise.
Despite assurances to the contrary from their independent insurance agent, Robert Schmidt, Travelers Insurance had allegedly cancelled their new fire insurance policy - Vuong and Li had switched companies to save on premiums - just months before the fire.
Nearly two years later, the owners have yet to be repaid a dime for the damage and are preparing for an Ada County District Court trial in August, in which they will argue that Travelers Insurance should be on the hook to reimburse them for a policy they paid for.
Their former insurance agent had his license revoked by the state insurance board for, among other things, misappropriating the owners' funds. And the cancelled policy is having other legal reverberations, with former neighbors of the restauranteurs filing a lawsuit against Vuong and Li in June to pay for damage their business sustained in the same fire.
The restaurant,...