HNRK Coverage Corner

The Washington Post reports: “Wildfires are ripping across the Great Plains, and other fare ups are popping up in Arizona and Colorado remarkably early this year.”  Experts predict that the “fire season ahead is a recipe for concern—perhaps signaling an expanding frontier for fire risk in broader patches of the western half of the United States.” 

Heading into what is anticipated to be a “brutal” wildfire season, utility companies and other businesses are increasingly exposed to liability for the resulting losses.  Liability insurance policies may provide coverage ...

Construction begets injuries, which beget lawsuits, which beget liability insurance claims, which frequently beget coverage disputes and litigation that raise a unique set of issues (see previous Coverage Corner posts on construction insurance issues here). Today at the Coverage Corner, we examine a recent Second Circuit decision that takes a deep dive into the canons of construction (think contra proferentem, the “rule of the last antecedent” and the “series qualifier canon”) to resolve a dispute over insurance coverage for a real-life construction injury claim ...

A recent decision from the U.S. District Court of Western District of Washington  touches on a number of important insurance coverage issues:  policy reformation, the effect of an insured’s late notice of a claim, and the insurer’s burden to prove applicability of a policy exclusion. In General Casualty Company of Wisconsin v. Reed Hein & Assoc. LLC et al., the court’s consideration of these issues resulted in opposite outcomes for two insurers. While the insured’s CGL carrier (General Casualty) successfully avoided a duty to defend, the D&O insurer (RSUI) was found to have ...