A recent Mississippi case reminds commercial and residential policyholders alike of the importance of updating insurance coverage when circumstances change to avoid a coverage dispute or the loss of coverage altogether....more
On December 31, 2021, New York imposed draconian new insurance disclosure requirements on defendants in New York state courts when Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Comprehensive Insurance Disclosure Act (Senate Bill 7052) into...more
Nordstrom, like other retailers, sustained property damage and business interruption expenses as a result of protests arising out of the Black Lives Matter movement. Although the retailer supports BLM, its insurers do not...more
Notwithstanding insurers’ transparent attempts to convince you otherwise, policyholders may very well have coverage for business interruption losses from COVID-19 under their property policies. Since the start of the...more
A North Carolina court has required Cincinnati Insurance Company to provide business interruption and extra expense coverage to 16 North Carolina restaurants that lost the use of and access to their properties due to COVID-19...more
Judge Stephen Bough and the federal court in the Western District of Missouri entered an important order yesterday in a case brought by Studio 417, a hair salon, and several restaurants against Cincinnati Insurance Company....more
The Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has rejected efforts to centralize pretrial proceedings in actions in Pennsylvania and Illinois seeking insurance coverage for business interruption losses resulting from COVID-19. The...more
Many of the early insurance-related COVID-19 lawsuits seek insurance coverage under the civil authority coverage grant in commercial property policies. Restaurants filed the first cases (Cajun Conti LLC, et al. v. Certain...more
COVID-19 has changed the daily lives for all Americans, and this includes a spring with no baseball. Fans across the nation had tickets in hand for the 15 games set for Opening Day on March 26, 2020. However, on March 12,...more
Louisiana, like many other states, has proposed two insurance coverage bills in response to COVID-19’s devastating impact on businesses. While Louisiana’s House bill is limited to small businesses, the Senate bill is not....more
As COVID-19 halts commercial activity throughout the United States, states have jumped into action to preserve insurance coverage for small businesses. New Jersey led the way by proposing legislation requiring property...more
As COVID-19 leads to event cancellations worldwide, the insurance market is scrambling to minimize its financial exposure to event cancellation claims. Although we have seen event policies with COVID-19 exclusions and others...more
In a sweeping decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit extended the absolute pollution exclusion to the unplanned discharge of “rock fines,” pellets produced during quarry operations, and denied coverage for...more
1/31/2020
/ Appeals ,
Commercial General Liability Policies ,
Declaratory Judgments ,
Denial of Insurance Coverage ,
Department of Environmental Protection ,
Drinking Water ,
Duty to Defend ,
Environmental Violations ,
Insurance Industry ,
Insurance Litigation ,
Notice of Violation ,
Policy Exclusions ,
Policy Terms ,
Pollution Exclusion ,
Reversal ,
Statutory Violations ,
Umbrella Policies ,
Water Pollution
A recent decision involving insurance coverage for a rideshare driver explains the temporal aspect of rideshare policies, which insure drivers during certain phases of the rideshare process. Here a driver sought uninsured...more
Informed insureds know the importance of notifying their primary insurer of an occurrence or a claim. But notice to the primary layer often does not suffice. If the plaintiff’s demand exceeds the limits in the primary...more
8/24/2019
/ Appeals ,
Car Accident ,
Commercial General Liability Policies ,
Construction Industry ,
Duty To Notify ,
Excess Policies ,
Insurance Litigation ,
Laches ,
Summary Judgment ,
Totality of Circumstances Test ,
Umbrella Policies
With the potential addition of autonomous cars and trucks to commercial fleets, commercial insureds should reassess coverage under their commercial auto, products liability and cyber insurance policies. Automation,...more
With the potential addition of autonomous cars and trucks to commercial fleets, commercial insureds should reassess coverage under their commercial auto, products liability, and cyber insurance policies. Automation,...more
4/5/2018
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Automation Systems ,
Cyber Insurance ,
Cybersecurity ,
Driverless Cars ,
Errors and Omissions Policy ,
Insurance Industry ,
Liability Insurance ,
Manufacturers ,
Policy Terms ,
Robotics ,
Technology Sector
Distributed Ledger Technology, commonly referred to as “blockchain,” is a secure way for companies and individuals to share information without third-party oversight. Blockchain decentralizes electronic record-keeping so...more
Due to the dramatic increase and changing nature of cyber risks, mergers and acquisitions due diligence should expand to address cyber risks, available risk mitigation practices, and available insurance. Acquiring companies...more
1/29/2018
/ Business Interruption ,
Computer Fraud Insurance ,
Cyber Insurance ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Protection ,
Due Diligence ,
Employee Training ,
Incident Response Plans ,
Information Technology ,
Insurance Industry ,
Malware ,
Policy Terms ,
Popular ,
Ransomware ,
Risk Management ,
Risk Mitigation
Allianz’s yearly survey of nearly 2,000 risk experts from 80 countries highlights business interruption and cyber incidents as the top two major threats for companies through 2018 and beyond. Forty-two percent of responses...more
On November 17, 2017, a U.S. district court in Florida narrowly construed personal and advertising injury coverage for data-breach claims under a commercial general liability policy. In Innovak International, Inc., v. The...more
11/28/2017
/ Advertising Injury ,
Claim Denial Letters ,
Class Action ,
Commercial General Liability Policies ,
Cyber Insurance ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Duty to Defend ,
Insurance Industry ,
Negligence ,
Personally Identifiable Information
An 11th Circuit decision issued earlier this year serves as a reminder of the importance of carefully evaluating time-based exclusions and retroactive dates when procuring or renewing coverage. Liability policies such as...more
9/22/2017
/ Claims Made Policy ,
D&O Insurance ,
Denial of Insurance Coverage ,
Fraudulent Transfers ,
Insolvency ,
Insurance Claims ,
Policy Exclusions ,
Policy Terms ,
Premiums ,
Prior Bad Acts ,
Professional Liability Insurance ,
Renewal Options ,
Retroactivity ,
Wrongful Acts
As every policyholder should know, purportedly “late” notice under claims-made insurance policies can eradicate coverage – even if the policyholder purchases successive policies from the same insurer. Alaska Interstate...more
Even as Hurricane Harvey’s effects continue to unfold, Texas policyholders face another imminent threat. On September 1, 2017, a new Texas law becomes effective that dramatically limits insurance recoveries for Texan...more
8/30/2017
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Denial of Insurance Coverage ,
Hurricane Harvey ,
Hurricane Season ,
Insurance Claims ,
Insurance Industry ,
Natural Disasters ,
New Legislation ,
Popular ,
Property Damage ,
Property Insurance ,
Severe Weather
The Second Circuit issued a decision of interest to every company that utilizes a mobile app to interact with its customers. In Meyer v. Kalanick, the court enforced the mandatory arbitration provision in the Uber app. The...more