Step-Up, Insurer! Your Step-Down Provision Is Not Triggered
“Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.” — Frank Pierson Where an automobile policy covers someone other than the named insured, a “step-down” provision may subject the amount of available coverage...
View ArticleTenth Circuit Drills Down Into Roots Of Moral Hazard, Comes Up Dry
Moral hazard (one of this blog’s preoccupations) usually comes up in disputes over the scope of coverage under an insurance policy. (See, for example, here, here and here.) But state legislatures...
View ArticleWashington Court Finds Coverage For “Collapse” Is Not Set In Stone
As this blog has documented, the language of insurance policies evolves; it changes to address new risks, and it also responds to new interpretations of old policy provisions. Even if a policyholder...
View ArticleSubcontractor Exception Torpedoes Insurers’ Defense To Faulty Workmanship Claim
As this blog has reported, a line of cases deciding coverage disputes over faulty workmanship runs against (or, at least, around) a basic rule for interpreting insurance policies. Under that rule, the...
View ArticleUnlike Friendships, Policy Exclusions Are Not Severable In West Virginia
A homeowners insurance policy often covers every member of a family, and many policies state that the insurance applies separately to each insured. The same policies usually exclude coverage for...
View ArticleNinth Circuit Leaves it to Policyholder to Pay Eddie Haskell’s Attorneys’ Fees
Eddie: Well, look, there’s nothin’ to be so shook about. Lumpy’s insurance’ll take care of it. Moral hazard lurks around the edges of many disputes about liability coverage. Everyone agrees in...
View ArticleEleventh Circuit Deems Voluntary Dismissal of a Coverage Action Sufficient to...
In a recent unpublished opinion, the Eleventh Circuit issued a decision that should serve as a warning to insurers to be sure to resolve all issues before dismissing a coverage action, particularly...
View ArticleThird Circuit Clarifies Abstention Doctrine in Insurance Coverage Declaratory...
Insurers looking to remove declaratory judgment actions to courts in the Third Circuit were recently given some clarity — and, for one defendant insurer, a welcome reversal. On August 21, the U.S....
View ArticleGeorgia Federal Court Rules on Questions of Efficient Proximate Cause,...
In ACE American Ins. Co. v. Exide Technologies, Inc. and The Wattles Co., No. 1:16-CV-1600-MHC (N.D. Ga. Sept. 20, 2017), the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia applied a...
View ArticleNo Coverage for Hole-In-One Contest, Says Fore-th Circuit Court of Appeals
They say a bad day on the golf course is better than a good day at work. For Old White Charities, Inc., a non-profit that conducted a hole-in-one contest during the Greenbrier Classic Pro-Am golf...
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