The President and his administration continue to tout their efforts to strengthen coverage for behavioral health care, including significantly increasing behavioral health spending and strengthening parity between physical...more
On November 23, 2021, the New York Court of Appeals held that an investment firm’s $140 million disgorgement payment to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was not an excluded “penalty imposed by law” under the...more
On this week’s episode, Carla DewBerry and Sarah Carlins discuss a recent California Federal District Court decision in David Wit v. United Behavioral Health, in which the court found that the defendant insurer violated ERISA...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, applying California law, has held that an excess insurer could not second-guess the payment decisions of underlying insurers absent a showing of fraud or bad faith, or...more
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
Coverage disputes often come down to the interplay between endorsements and the body of the policy. But this tension is not limited to terms addressing coverage. It can also extend to areas such as dispute resolution. ...more
Can the terms of a warranty impact the scope of coverage provided by an insurance policy even if the policy does not explicitly incorporate the terms of the warranty? The answer to this question appears to be yes, at least...more
Two appellate courts recently examined the scope of a homeowners policy’s requirement that the insured reside at the property at the time of loss....more
Moral hazard (one of this blog’s preoccupations) usually comes up in disputes over the scope of coverage under an insurance policy. But state legislatures often address it, too—for example, by imposing limits on agreements...more
In Fontana Builders, Inc. v. Assurance Company of America, Case No. 2014AP821, 2016 WL 3526408 (Wis. Jun. 29, 2016), the Wisconsin Supreme Court addressed whether the purchase of a homeowner’s policy by the occupiers and...more
Disputes involving “vacancy” exclusions typically involve the appropriate definition of that word. The recently-decided case of Lui v. Essex Ins. Co., 2016 Wash. LEXIS 692 (Wash. June 9, 2016) presents a somewhat different...more