Page:Parker v. Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Co.pdf/7

Rh    days before his quarterly installment payment was due:

"It is time to make your quarterly premium payment on your auto policy. Please accept this notice that your coverage is due to expire 12:01 am, 09-09-93. To keep your coverage in force please mail us your payment before that date. In order to reduce expenses this will be the only renewal notice you will receive"

Farm Bureau insisted to the trial court and continued to assert on appeal that Parker only purchased insurance for three months, and that the statutory notice of cancellation thus did not apply to a policy which expired by its own terms. Farm Bureau also maintained, alternatively, that the billing notice sent to Parker satisfied the statutory notice requirement. The trial court found that Farm Bureau's reliance on the case of ''Farmers Ins. Co. v. Hall'', 263 Ark. 734, 567 S.W.2d 296 (1978), was misplaced because in Hall, this court held that the ten-day cancellation notice was not required where a policy expired on its own terms because the insured failed to pay a renewal premium before the policy expiration date. The holding in Hall was thus not applicable to cancellation for failure to pay an installment payment. Farm Bureau did not appeal the grant of summary judgment on this issue and finally admitted during oral argument before this court that it had failed to comply with the statutory notice requirement. With this background in mind, we turn to the arguments which Parker raises regarding his claim of bad faith.

1. Restriction of discovery.
Parker first argues that the trial court erroneously restricted his efforts to discover certain records maintained by Farm Bureau which were relevant to his claim of bad faith. This argument concerns two discovery requests which must be addressed separately.

A. Farm Bureau's cancellation notices to other insureds.
During the course of discovery, Parker sought to obtain the twenty most recent notices mailed by Farm Bureau to its insureds giving notice of its intent to cancel automobile insurance for nonpayment of premiums. On appeal, Parker argues that the notices might contain evidence of Farm Bureau's bad faith in denying his claim if other insureds similarly situated received the ten-day cancellation notice. Parker had earlier discovered that Farm Bureau