Property

  • July 29, 2024

    Judge Ends Coverage Quest, Calls $2.7M Loss 'Foreseeable'

    An Arizona federal judge granted a quick win to an insurer over $2.7 million in water damage losses claimed by an Arizona landlord, finding the losses were "foreseeable" and therefore not covered by the all-risk policy.

  • July 26, 2024

    Ex-Magistrate Judge Picked To Oversee Texas Insurance Fight

    A New York federal judge has appointed a former magistrate judge to oversee a dispute between a Texas school district and several insurers who allegedly stiffed the district $17 million in damages following Hurricane Hanna.

  • July 26, 2024

    Chubb Unit Asks 11th Circ. To Undo $13.8M Appraisal Award

    A Chubb unit asked the Eleventh Circuit on Friday to reverse the approval of a Florida condominium association's $13.8 million appraisal award for hurricane damage sustained in 2017, arguing that a lower court erred in finding that one of the appraisers was partial to the association.

  • July 26, 2024

    Fla. Law Firm Settles Ex-Paralegal's Sex Harassment Suit

    Florida-based insurance law firm Property Litigation Group PLLC has reached a settlement with a former paralegal who alleged she was fired after reporting unwanted sexual advances and case mismanagement by a senior attorney.

  • July 26, 2024

    Insurers See Losses Amid Migration To Severe Weather States

    Population migration into parts of the U.S. with more severe weather is one factor driving the worst U.S. homeowner's insurance underwriting results since at least 2000, according to a report on the insurance industry from AM Best.

  • July 25, 2024

    SC Justices Reject Insurer's Bid To Avoid Asbestos Coverage

    An insurer for a now-defunct thermal insulation installer can't invoke an exclusion for bodily injury stemming from completed operations to avoid settlement coverage of an underlying "take-home" asbestos injury claim, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled, further clarifying when an insurer can use an insured's untimely notice to bar coverage.

  • July 25, 2024

    CrowdStrike Outage May Leave Policyholders Few Options

    Policyholders whose operations were disrupted by global outages caused by an issue with cybersecurity company CrowdStrike Holdings Inc.'s software may have few options to recover despite the chaos for air travel, government operations and financial institutions.

  • July 25, 2024

    Retailer Urges NC Justices To Revive COVID Coverage Row

    A clothing company told North Carolina's highest court that the state's appeals court erred in dismissing its lawsuit attempting to recover COVID-19-related losses from its insurer, arguing that the lower court disregarded the omission of a virus exclusion from the policy, which "concede[d] that a virus can cause 'damage.'"

  • July 25, 2024

    Insurance Litigation Week In Review

    Massachusetts’ top court sided with a hospital owner in a storm damage coverage dispute, the California Supreme Court revived a suit over State Farm’s claims-handling practices and the Ninth Circuit affirmed an insurer’s COVID-19 coverage win. Here, Law360 takes a look at this week's top insurance news.

  • July 25, 2024

    Climate Risks Heighten Inequities In Insurance Crisis

    Climate risks are contributing to higher homeowners insurance prices and a crisis of uninsured households, particularly among low-income homeowners and people of color, experts say, with some saying "transformative" change is needed to solve the problem.

  • July 25, 2024

    Policyholder Attys Cheer Justices' Ruling On 'Surface Waters'

    Like a bridge over troubled water, Massachusetts' highest court laid down a rejection of the term "surface waters," finding insurers couldn't rely on the phrase to limit coverage to a storm-damaged hospital in an opinion celebrated by policyholder attorneys as providing far-reaching clarity on a contested issue.

  • July 25, 2024

    Zurich Can't Revive Deductible In Georgia Coverage Suit

    A Georgia federal judge rejected Zurich American Insurance Co.'s bid to reverse a ruling holding it could and did waive a $2.5 million flood deductible in its coverage row with First Solar Electric LLC over storm damage to a solar farm, holding that the insurer was just "regurgitating" arguments.

  • July 24, 2024

    How Hinckley Allen Took On Rhode Island Beach-Access Law

    A Rhode Island judge this month sided with beachfront property owners, represented by Hinckley Allen & Snyder LLP, ruling that a 2023 law that shifts the public access line landward amounts to a taking.

  • July 24, 2024

    Conn. Cannabis Co.'s Income Loss Not Covered, Insurer Says

    An insurer said it has no obligation to cover a cannabis company's business income loss stemming from a February 2020 fire, telling a Connecticut federal court that the loss was not caused by a suspension of operations but rather damage to marijuana plants that aren't covered.

  • July 24, 2024

    6th Circ. Floats Remand Of Geico Agent Misclassification Suit

    The Sixth Circuit on Wednesday pressed Geico about plan documents reviewed by a lower court when it tossed agents' claims they were misclassified as independent contractors, floating the possibility of sending the case back for limited discovery.

  • July 24, 2024

    Nationwide Urges Mich. Court To Stand By Unitary Biz Ruling

    The Michigan Court of Appeals properly ruled that insurance companies that are part of Nationwide should file their taxes as a unitary group, the company told the appeals court, saying the state Treasury Department's request for reconsideration should be denied.

  • July 23, 2024

    6th Circ. Affirms Insurer's Early Win In Hail Damage Suit

    A welding company wasn't owed coverage for roof damage caused by wind and a hailstorm, the Sixth Circuit ruled, finding that a lower court didn't err in ruling that a cosmetic-damage exclusion in its policy precludes the damage at issue.

  • July 23, 2024

    Insurers Must Defend Well Driller In Lead Contamination Suit

    Insurers must defend a drilling company accused of contaminating a rental property's water supply with dangerous levels of lead, a Montana federal court ruled, saying they haven't shown the underlying claims fall outside the policies' insuring agreements or are otherwise excluded from coverage.

  • July 23, 2024

    'Surface Water' Stumps Mass. Justices In Loss For Insurers

    The top court in Massachusetts on Tuesday ruled in favor of a hospital seeking insurance coverage stemming from a severe rainstorm, saying it's unclear if water that pooled on the hospital's roof should be considered "surface water" that would trigger policy limits on flood damage.

  • July 22, 2024

    9th Circ. Affirms Dismissal Of Calif. Virus Coverage Suit

    The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal Monday of a California event operators' COVID-19 insurance coverage dispute after the state's Supreme Court determined in May that the virus doesn't cause the type of property damage needed to trigger coverage.

  • July 22, 2024

    Nationwide Seeks Travelers' Aid In Hot Tub Illness Row

    Nationwide told a California federal court a Travelers unit must help defend a condominium association in an underlying lawsuit brought by a resident alleging he needed a double lung transplant because of hot tub contaminants, arguing Travelers' pollution exclusion and fungi or bacteria exclusion didn't apply.

  • July 19, 2024

    Chubb Unit Beats Manufacturer In R.I. COVID-19 Coverage Suit

    A knitted wire mesh manufacturer lost its bid for coverage for pandemic losses at its Mexico facilities because it didn't show that COVID-19 caused covered physical damage, a Rhode Island federal court ruled Friday, handing a win to the manufacturer's Chubb insurer.

  • July 19, 2024

    Calif. Justices Revive Row Over State Farm's Claims Handling

    California's Supreme Court revived a policyholder's case over State Farm's claims-handling practices, reversing an appeals court decision and agreeing with the state's attorney general that California's statute of limitations on unfair competition actions, not the policy or insurance code, governed the timing of the case.

  • July 18, 2024

    Insurer Settles Coverage Row Over Wash. Day Care Sex Abuse

    Following a contested nearly $25 million settlement agreement, an insurance coverage dispute arising from the molestation of children at an Olympia, Washington, day care center has been resolved, a Washington federal court announced Thursday.

  • July 18, 2024

    Towers Watson's Bump-Up Appeal Lifts Policyholder Hopes

    Towers Watson's request that the Fourth Circuit reject a lower court decision freeing its insurers from paying out $54 million in directors and officers coverage has raised policyholders' hopes that a favorable ruling will clarify the reach of so-called bump-up exclusions.

Expert Analysis

  • Potential Marijuana Status Change Would Shift Industry Risks

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    Cannabis companies and their insurers should pay close attention to how the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' move toward marijuana reclassification plays out, and the potential for a shakeup in the landscape for cannabis regulation at the state and federal levels, says Ian Stewart at Wilson Elser.

  • Key Provisions In Florida's New Insurer Accountability Act

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    Florida's recent bipartisan Insurer Accountability Act introduces a range of new obligations for insurance companies and regulatory bodies to strengthen consumer protection, and other states may follow suit should it prove successful at ensuring a reliable insurance market, say Jan Larson and Benjamin Malings at Jenner & Block.

  • Texas Storms Drive Coverage Litigation And Key Rulings

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    Given the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events across Texas, first-party coverage claims continue to dominate high-profile litigation in the state, bringing significant recent decisions on attorney fees, appraisal, allocation and other important insurance topics, says Laura Grabouski at Holden Litigation.

  • Next Steps For Insurers After Ky. OKs Early 3rd-Party Claims

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    While insurers in Kentucky may face more statutory bad faith claims after a recent state Supreme Court decision clarified that third parties may bring these torts even before determination of coverage is finalized, insurers can adopt a variety of approaches to reduce their exposure, says Jason Reichlyn at Dykema Gossett.

  • Insurers, Prepare For Large Exposures From PFAS Claims

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    With thousands of lawsuits concerning per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances pending across the country, several large settlements already reached, and both regulators and the plaintiffs bar increasingly focusing on PFAS, it is becoming clear that these "forever chemicals" present major exposures to insurers and their policyholders, say Scott Seaman and Jennifer Arnold at Hinshaw.

  • Rethinking Mich. Slip-And-Fall Defense After Top Court Ruling

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    The Michigan Supreme Court recently overturned three decades of premises liability jurisprudence by ruling that the open and obvious danger defense is no longer part of a traditional duty analysis, posing the question of whether landowners will ever again win on a motion for summary dismissal, say John Stiglich and Meriam Choulagh at Wilson Elser.

  • What To Know About Duty To Settle Insurance Claims In Texas

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    Laura Grabouski of Holden Litigation examines the parameters of Texas insurers' duty to settle liability claims within the limits of the primary policy, as knowledge of the requirements — and the potential exposure from insureds, judgment creditors or excess creditors — can pay dividends in the era of nuclear verdicts.

  • NY's Take On Premises Insurance Policies: What's In A Name?

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    A New York appellate court's recent decision in Wesco Insurance v. Fulmont Mutual Insurance — requiring insurance coverage for a property owner not named on the policy — strengthens a state case law trend creating a practical exception in premises liability cases to normally strict requirements for coverage, says Craig Rokuson at Traub Lieberman.

  • Ga. Mirror-Image Rule Makes Settlements Fraught For Insurers

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    The Georgia Court of Appeals' recent decision in Pierce v. Banks shows how strictly Georgia courts will enforce the rule that an insurer's response to a settlement demand must be a mirror image of the demand — and is a reminder that parties must exercise caution when accepting such a demand, says Seth Friedman at Lewis Brisbois.

  • What's In The NAIC's Draft AI Bulletin

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    The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has released a draft bulletin on insurers' use of artificial intelligence systems, intended as a template for regulators to guide insurers to employ AI consistently with market conduct, corporate governance and unfair and deceptive trade practice laws, say Paige Waters and Stephanie O'Neill Macro at Locke Lord.

  • Insurance Ruling Shows Notice Letters Need Close Review

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    A Texas appeals court's recent disapproval of an insured’s presuit notice letter to Westchester Surplus Lines Insurance — which refused to quantify an alleged injury — should prompt courts to probe deeper when considering whether such a letter gives the insurer the information needed to resolve the claim or make a settlement offer, say Jennifer Martin and Timothy Delabar at Wilson Elser.

  • Groundbreaking Nev. Law May Alter Insurance Landscape

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    The Nevada Legislature recently passed a law prohibiting insurers from issuing liability policies with eroding limits provisions that has the potential to create massive shifts in the marketplace — and specifically in areas like professional liability, cyber, and directors and officers insurance, says Will Bennett at Saxe Doernberger.

  • What The ESG Divide Means For Insurers And Beyond

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    The debate around ESG is becoming increasingly polarized, with some states passing legislation that prohibits the use of ESG factors and others advancing affirmative legislation, highlighting the importance for insurers and other companies to understand this complex legal landscape, say Scott Seaman and Bessie Daschbach at Hinshaw.

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