The California Supreme Court recently ruled, in a case involving environmental damage at a State controlled waste site, that multiple insurers, who provided coverage to the State at different periods between 1964-1976, are each responsible up to policy limits for long tail injuries, and that allocating liability based on damage caused during each separate policy period is not feasible or necessary. [State of California v. Continental Ins. Co. 8/9/12]

In the Continental case, the Supreme Court “rejected the insurers’ contention that they could not be liable for property damage occurring outside their respective policy periods.” The Court did so based on the “all sums” language in their commercial general liability (CGL) policies.