In Clear Blue Specialty Insurance Co. v. TFS NY Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, interpreting the plain and unambiguous terms of a commercial general liability policy issued by Clear Blue...more
One way a CGL insurer can narrow otherwise broad bodily injury and property damage coverage is by activity. Activities that face similar risk can be grouped using an activity classification code, which can be incorporated...more
The answer to this question will depend upon the language of your policy. Most business interruption insurance policies, however, will have coverage language and exclusions that will make it unlikely for a COVID-19 claim to...more
Many businesses shift risk by requiring others with whom they do business – e.g., vendors, subcontractors, suppliers, and others – to procure insurance on their behalf by making the business an “additional insured” under the...more
New York High Court Finds No Additional Insured Coverage In Absence of Contractual Privity With Named Insured - It is a common practice in the insurance industry for a project owner to require the general contractor to...more
Last weekend we played Speak-Out: Kids versus Parents, a game where you use a plastic thingy to obstruct your speech capabilities. The winning team is the one that guesses the most phrases. Reading and understanding an...more
We have noted, again and again, examples of disappointed Additional Insureds. Today we report that at least one Additional Insured has left the Courthouse smiling. It was, however, to paraphrase Wellington, a near-run...more
We’ve chronicled some of the ways in which an “Additional Insured” can be disappointed. The most recent is from Pennsylvania, where the United States District Court Judge agreed with the Magistrate that the Additional...more
For the first time in a published opinion, a California appellate court directly addressed whether the ongoing operations limitation in additional insured endorsements (AIEs) precludes completed operations coverage. In Pulte...more
One of the principal points of contention between insurers and insureds is whether defective construction work is, or can be, an occurrence, thereby triggering coverage. Originally published in ConsensusDocs (Vol. 3,...more
The “additional insured” provision is one of the most critical provisions in a contract, yet is usually an afterthought. Contract negotiations over scope, schedule, and budget can and should demand your full attention, but...more
On September 15, 2016, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department found that an additional insured endorsement provided additional insured coverage only to the entity in direct contractual privity with...more
Over the summer, this blog reported on how the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania managed to parse an employer’s liability exclusion to find that it did not exclude claims by employees of additional insureds. As the leaves started...more
No contract clause is more common than the one that says, in effect, “B promises to carry commercial general liability insurance, and to make A an ‘Additional Insured’ under B’s policy.” And perhaps no contract clause...more
In Capital City Real Estate, LLC v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, No. 14-1239 (4th Cir. June 10, 2015), the Fourth Circuit Court ruled that a Maryland federal court erred in granting summary judgment to Certain...more
This is the first in a 2-part series on the use of certificates of insurance as evidence of liability coverage for contractors on construction projects. The second part of the series will discuss the potential impact of...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion this month that should serve as a reminder to prime contractors to review the coverage granted to them as additional insureds on their subcontractors’...more
Unfortunately, insurance requirements in contracts are not easy to understand. The language used in insurance requirements is not always intuitive, but we all know that the consequences of not having the right insurance can...more
Within the past four months, two courts interpreting Mississippi law have held that an additional-insured endorsement to a subcontractor’s commercial general liability (CGL) insurance policy did not obligate the insurer to...more
In Woodward, L.L.C. v. Acceptance Indemnity Insurance Company, WL 535726 (5th Cir. 2014), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held the insurer had no duty to defend the contractor named as an additional insured under a...more