Here are a few universal truths. If politicians can raise taxes, they will. If lawyers can bill, they will. And if judges can find a way to help clear their docket, they will. That last truth can create a serious problem for the unwary dealing with insurance claims.
Many business property policies and homeowners’ policies…
Here are a few universal truths. If politicians can raise taxes, they will. If lawyers can bill, they will. And if judges can find a way to help clear their docket, they will. That last truth can create a serious problem for the unwary dealing with insurance claims.
Many business property policies and homeowners’ policies…
There’s an excellent, but sad and haunting, nonfiction book written by Jeff Hobbs called “The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace.” It’s about a kid who grew up among poverty, gangs and tough guys in a rough section of Newark, but who was naturally gifted and ended up at Yale. Unfortunately, he couldn’t outrun…
Labor Day has just passed as I write this, and this summer (that went by too quickly) was a busy one for the New Jersey appellate courts, insurance-wise. The New Jersey Supremes, for example, dealt with a question often posed by our clients in construction defect cases: Namely, can a claimant proceed directly against a…
Earlier this year, I posted about whether a policyholder has a right to independent counsel when a possible conflict of interest appears between the carrier and the policyholder. (You can read that post here.) We’re frequently asked that question, because when insurance companies agree to defend a claim, they often send a reservation of…
Back in the days of the environmental insurance coverage wars, we on the policyholder side argued (eventually successfully in New Jersey) that the word “sudden”, as used in the 1973 version of the pollution exclusion, meant “unexpected” and did not have a temporal connotation. My friends in the defense bar often criticized us for trying…
The ongoing battles over construction defect coverage remind me of the good old days in the ‘80’s and ‘90s when we used to fight over asbestos and environmental coverage claims (we still have some of those claims, but to a much lesser extent). Construction defects even involve battles over the appropriate trigger of coverage! Ah…
It’s amazing to me that Nigerian banker scams continue to appear in my inbox every now and then. After all these years, businesspeople apparently continue to fall for them. Click here for a pretty good fact sheet from the Australian government on how these scams work, and how to avoid them.
Recently, a Minnesota bank…
We in business are all overwhelmed with reading material, but I try to make sure that I read at least some legal and business publications every day to keep up with developing trends. And, it seems that every day I see another article about a new hacking incident, or another dire warning about cyber-risk. (The…
I’ve sometimes commented on this blog that my first boss in the business warned me: “If you assume there’s no coverage, you won’t find any.” There are plenty of risk managers and brokers who believe that general liability insurance coverage exists primarily to protect against people falling down in the parking lot. Not suprisingly, many…