Insurance

An insurer did not act in bad faith by denying an uninsured motorist claim because the insured had not pursued her worker’s compensation claim, based on the same accident, to completion. Read More

As the Probate Code allows a plaintiff to sue the estate of a decedent to prove that the decedent was liable for an obligation covered by his insurance, the insurance company is considered a “party” to the litigation for purposes of 998 settlement offers and therefore can be liable for cost recovery if the insurer does not accept the plaintiff's… Read More

The insurer of a corporation that has been suspended for nonpayment of taxes cannot assert a subrogation claim after paying the insured corporation's judgment since subrogation means that the insurer stands in the shoes of the insured, and the insured would not be able to sue.  Read More

Plaintiff's loss of its city license to operate a bar after a shooting death on its premises qualified as "loss of use of tangible property that is not physically injured," a loss expressly covered by its commercial general liability policy. Read More

An insurer was allowed to deny life insurance coverage based on the insured's failure to provide notice of disability, only if it could show it was actually prejudiced by the lack of notice.  Read More

Insurance regulation defining “‘[k]knowingly committed” as “performed with actual, implied or constructive knowledge, including, but not limited to, that which is implied by operation of law" is a reasonable interpretation of the Unfair Insurance Practices Act and therefore is enforceable. Read More

Auto insurance coverage limit for injury “to each person” applies to any damages, including loss of consortium damages, flowing from a bodily injury to a single person—even if that person is not the only one who suffers from the loss of consortium. Read More

The filed-rate doctrine, as codified in Ins. Code 12414.26, barred plaintiff’s claim that a title insurer improperly charged additional document preparation and delivery service fees. Read More

Minnesota's statute that automatically revokes an ex-spouse's revocable designation of the other ex-spouse as a death beneficiary of an insurance policy or pension plan does not violate the federal constitution's Contracts Clause since it implements the former spouse’s presumed intent, thus supporting rather than impairing the contract. Read More

A CGL insurer owes the insured a duty to defend a claim seeking to hold the insured liable for a negligent hiring, training or supervision theory for an employee’s intentionally wrongful act. Read More

Under a homeowner’s insurance policy’s “personal injury” coverage, the insurer must defend a nuisance claim charging that a fence the insured built on his own property blocked an easement providing access to the plaintiff’s adjoining property. Read More

An indemnification plan offered in connection with a self-storage lease is not insurance so the lessor/indemnitor needs no insurance license. Read More

An “impaired property” exclusion barred coverage of a claim for loss of use of medical equipment allegedly caused by the insured’s negligent installation of an electrical cabinet. Read More

Property insurance covers loss from physical damage to property, not a loss in market value of undamaged property due to fraud. Read More

A standard form additional insured endorsement to a commercial general liability insurance policy provides coverage for claims first raised after completion of the principal insured’s work which arise from damage that began while that work was on-going. Read More

A commercial general liability policy does not cover a claim that the insured drug company over-promoted its addictive drug since promotion is intentional conduct, not an accident, and addiction is a natural and foreseeable result of the intentional promotion. Read More

With a long-tail loss, an excess insurer is not entitled to horizontal exhaustion of all underlying retention amounts for all years in which the loss is incurred; instead, vertical exhaustion applies: that is, once the retention amount for a single year is exhausted, the excess insurer for that year is liable for all sums incurred on the loss (up to… Read More

A subcontractor’s commercial general liability insurance policy did not exclude coverage of water damage to the interiors of modular units it supplied since the damage was not the specific part of the units on which the subcontractor was then working nor the part on which the subcontractor incorrectly performed its work.   Read More

The insured was not entitled to require an excess insurer to pay under its policy just by showing claims remained unpaid after exhausting all underlying policies for the one policy year, as some excess policies’ “other insurance” provisions required exhaustion of insurance issued for other policy years if it covered the same loss.   Read More

A construction subcontractor’s CGL policy did not clearly exclude "completed operations" coverage for an additional insured (here, the developer) or terminate insurance coverage when the subcontractor finished working on the project.   Read More