Insurance

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

Any Telephone Consumer Protection Act claim necessarily involves an invasion of privacy, so such a claim fell within the invasion of privacy exclusion to the insured's directors & officers insurance policy.   Read More

If the issues in a insurance coverage declaratory relief action overlap the issues in the underlying litigation against the insured, the insurer cannot, over the insured’s objection, take discovery on the overlapping issues or litigate them in the declaratory relief action.   Read More

A city is not liable in inverse condemnation for damage caused by a falling city-owned tree unless the tree was planted by the city as part of a civic improvement.    Read More

An elderly couple stated an elder abuse claim against an insurance agency that schemed to gut their whole life insurance policies and replace them with a less desirable policy, all for the purpose of earning a larger commission.   Read More