Spring is a time of rebirth and hope, especially for baseball fans. No matter how badly your team played last year, when March rolls around, you’re tied for first! That is, unless (like me) you’re a fan of the woeful New York Mets. After just a few weeks of spring training, their third baseman already
Emerging Trends
“Business Risk” Exclusions in CGL Policies
By Gene Killian on
The late, great comedian Alan King used to tell a story that went like this: “The other day, my house caught fire. My lawyer said, ‘Shouldn’t be a problem. What kind of coverage do you have?’ I said, ‘Fire and theft.’ The lawyer frowned. ‘Uh oh. Wrong kind. Should be fire OR theft.’”
Recently, a…
Developments in insurance bad faith law
By Gene Killian on
Posted in Bad Faith, Emerging Trends
Awhile back on this blog, we were discussing developments in insurance bad faith law, and I hypothesized that Courts were generally more apt to find bad faith in cases involving a carrier’s delay of benefits, rather than outright denial. But what if the outright denial contains a bald-faced lie, or a deliberate omission? In that…
The Duty to Defend in New Jersey
By Gene Killian on
Every now and then, a business owner asks me to review his company’s coverage program to make sure that adequate protection exists. I always say the same thing. “You’re looking at this all wrong. Buying insurance isn’t about buying protection. Buying insurance is about buying a right to sue an insurance company. Once you accept…
Insurance coverage for SEC investigations
By Gene Killian on
The SEC has been getting more and more aggressive with investigations into alleged securities fraud, as well as with filing civil securities fraud actions. In fact, we just got an SEC securities fraud action dismissed against one of our clients a couple of weeks ago…but it was an expensive fight. Over at Property Casualty 360…
Extreme business interruption insurance
By Gene Killian on
Posted in Business Interruption, Emerging Trends
Saw this post over at Property-Casualty 360 and got a kick out of it. Enjoy.
The Duty to Defend an Unclear Pleading
By Gene Killian on
So here’s a frustrating aspect of coverage work. The underlying plaintiff sues the policyholder based on a complaint that was inartfully drafted (which, in some instances, is a nice way of saying that the complaint looks like it was written while the lawyer was tripping on mescaline). The carrier denies coverage because nothing in the…
English & American Underwriting Agency Pools
By Gene Killian on
Got an e-mail from my friend John Denton at Marsh Risk Consulting about The English & American Underwriting Agency Pools (“EAU”) and their Scheme of Arrangement closure. Any historic London excess placements probably would have included one or more of the EAU companies as carriers. There are actions necessary to safeguard any outstanding claims, whether known or
…
Insurance coverage for construction defects
By Gene Killian on
Posted in Construction defects, Emerging Trends
It’s amazing how, when the economy tanked, construction defects began to multiply exponentially. I’m not (necessarily) trying to ascribe purely financial motives to the plaintiffs in these cases, but there’s no doubt that, at my firm at least, we’ve seen a marked increase in the amount of coverage litigation over construction defects.
So, what’s the…
Coverage for invasion of privacy
By Gene Killian on
Posted in Emerging Trends, Intellectual property
The subject of invasion of privacy has been in the news (pretty tragically) lately with the terrible suicide death of a Rutgers University freshman. Classmates allegedly had been spying on his personal life through a webcam, which upset him to the point that he took his own life.
I don’t mean to seem insensitive or…