I absolutely love this story on the Fifth Circuit asking the Texas Supreme Court to consider the scope of insurance coverage for claims arising out of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill loss; the case itself is fascinating as well. The reason is that insurance coverage law is an odd little area, in that massive numbers
Rules of Policy Interpretation
Back to the Future: Insurance Coverage Law from Asbestos to Cyber Risks
This is a very fun – if you can use that word for insurance disputes – discussion of the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court determining what trigger applies under insurance policies issued to insureds sued for asbestos related injuries. Its partly fun because it replays a highly contentious and, for all involved, expensive chapter in American legal history…
At the Intersection of Insurance and Plan Fiduciaries
Well, given the title of this blog, I couldn’t exactly let this decision pass unnoticed. In this decision from the Court of Appeals of New York, Federal Insurance Company v. IBM, the Court denied insurance coverage for IBM under an excess fiduciary liability (apparently) policy, for a settlement by IBM of a claim that…
Deconstructing the Language of Insurance Policies
I have been thinking a lot recently about the development and history of particular aspects of insurance policy language, and how they reflect the continuing efforts of drafters to take language that can often be imprecise and refine it to more accurately reinforce what the insurer actually intends to take on as a covered risk.
Cost of Living Benefits and Disability Benefits
There are some who believe that insurance policies are by definition ambiguous – mostly lawyers who solely represent policyholders for a living – and others, on occasion including judges, who sometimes seem to believe that unless a policy specifically excludes something, than it is either ambiguous and provides coverage or simply provides coverage because the…
Me and LaRue, and Business Insurance Too
There is an article in Business Insurance magazine this week, the June 25th issue, on the Supreme Court accepting review of the LaRue decision, in which I am quoted. The article is here – subscription required – and if you read it, you will note that it ends on my comment that I expect the…
Massachusetts Insurance Coverage Law in a Nutshell
I wanted to pass on to you a case out of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio that was issued about the time I was trying a patent infringement case last month, and which I wasn’t able to comment on then as a result. With a little more time…
Insurance Coverage Litigation and the Elastic Concept of Ambiguity
By Stephen Rosenberg on
When I was taking constitutional law in law school, I had a professor who liked to say that what standard of review the Supreme Court applied to certain types of issues depended on whether or not the justices wanted to uphold or instead overturn the statute before them; a more cursory level of review guaranteed…
The Eleventh Most Important Insurance Coverage Decision of 2006
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Duty to Indemnify, Rules of Policy Interpretation
End of the year lists, to alter an old off color joke, are like opinions: everyone, it seems this time of year, has one. Some are superficial, silly and cursory, like this one here, and others, like Randy Maniloff’s list discussed in my last post, are substantive. For those of you who couldn’t get…
Viruses, Asbestos and Exclusions
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Exclusions, Rules of Policy Interpretation
I am fascinated by this new exclusion that is being drafted and for which approval is being sought, which seeks to exclude claims arising from viruses – not the computer kind, but things like avian flu. I understand the intent, but for any of you who, like I, have been at the insurance coverage business…