No Homeowner Liability Coverage for an Insured’s ‘Negligent’ Assault, Even if...
Nicholas Fiocchi sued Ronald Zatyco for assaulting him after a verbal argument between them at a bar earlier the same evening. Fiocchi’s complaint in Pennsylvania state court attempted by artful...
View ArticleCalifornia Insurance Commissioner’s Authority to Regulate Insurers’...
On January 23, 2017, the California Supreme Court ruled that the insurance Commissioner of that state was given the power by the legislature to specify what factors must be covered by replacement cost...
View ArticleNightclub Policy Assault Exclusion Requires Perpetrator’s Intent in Order to...
Certain Lloyd’s underwriters lost their unopposed coverage motion for summary judgment based on an assault and battery policy exclusion, because a bar patron injured by gunfire did not allege she was...
View ArticleWhat Qualifies as an Insured Collapse?
Latest Case and Growing Trend Say it Must Fall Down or Cave in The scope of insurance coverage for collapse, first provided by the industry in 1954, has long been the subject of litigation in many...
View ArticleAuto Liability Policy Literally Enforced to Require Named Insured’s Consent...
A United States District Court, applying South Carolina law, found that an automobile liability insurer had no obligation to defend or indemnify a driver who was operating an insured vehicle without...
View ArticleProperty Insurer Liable for Shortfall in Policy Benefits Promised by Agent,...
A Florida state Court of Appeal reversed the dismissal of a claim for negligent procurement of property insurance, because, when placing the coverage, the insurer’s agent failed to account for a...
View ArticleFor Auto Liability Coverage to Attach to ‘Borrowed’ Vehicle, Transaction Must...
In an insurance dispute spanning two states, and applying Kentucky law, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, over a spirited dissent, held there was no coverage for an accident in Los Angeles. The...
View ArticleFederal Arbitration Act Governs Property Insurance Appraisals
In a decision filed July 14, 2017, the US District Court for the Central District of California invoked the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in refusing to vacate an insurance appraisal award determining...
View ArticleBusiness Income Insurance Covers Continuing Expenses Without Reduction for...
It is typical for business income insurance, the modern version of business interruption coverage, to provide for two components of actual loss of business, namely (1) net profit or loss before income...
View ArticleCoinsurance and Other Insurance Policy Clauses Don’t Mix
In a methodically crafted decision filed January 18, 2018 on cross-motions for summary judgment, Stefan R. Underhill, judge of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, ruled...
View ArticleCourt Waxes Shakespearean in Denying Property Insurance Claim for Counterfeit...
The California Court of Appeal began and ended its insurance coverage opinion of March 7, 2018 with the Bard’s wisdom. The court clearly got it right in denying property insurance coverage for the...
View ArticleFaulty Workmanship, Even if Charged as Negligence, Isn’t Fortuitous Enough to...
Every once in a while, a court teaches us by judicial decision an entire chapter of insurance law lessons we can carry with us, secure in the knowledge that we can reason our way to the right result in...
View ArticleAuto Policy Delivery or Business Use Exclusion Held Ambiguous
Twice in the last four years American Access Casualty Company, a non-standard private passenger automobile insurer based in Downers Grove, Ill., has been judicially warned in decisions of intermediate...
View ArticleAmbiguous Grant Of Collapse Coverage Construed In Policyholder’s Favor
Invoking the familiar insurance contract interpretation doctrine of California and other jurisdictions, that truly ambiguous policy wording must be construed against the insurer drafting it, the U.S....
View ArticleClaims Journal’s Top 10 Contributed Articles of 2018
An emphasis on current laws and focus on insurtech were some of the highlights of Claims Journal’s top read contributed articles of 2018. Slower Traffic Keep Right: A Summary of State ‘Keep Right’...
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