HNRK Coverage Corner

Excess policies frequently “follow form” to—that is, incorporate the terms of—the underlying primary policy.  Nevertheless, an excess policy is a separate insurance contract, and the excess insurer is typically not bound by the primary insurer’s coverage decisions. 

After the primary insurer pays out its policy limits, can the excess insurer challenge the propriety of the primary insurer’s coverage determination, and on that basis argue that the  the excess policy is not triggered because the followed policy wasn’t properly exhausted? 

Judge Cooper of the United ...

In a guest article for the New York Law Journal, we provide our perspective on the “expected or intended” defense raised by liability insurers seeking to avoid coverage.  The article discusses the standard applicable to the defense and how New York courts have responded to insurers’ attempts to weaken that standard.

The full article can be read here. 

https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2024/07/26/dont-allow-insurers-to-weaken-the-standard-applicable-to-the-expected-or-intended-coverage-defense/ 

On May 15, 2024, the Eighth Circuit issued a decision in Dexon Computer, Inc. v. Travelers Property Casualty Company of America, Case No. 23–1328, interpreting what the district court aptly described as a “nebulous concept”—the “related acts” provision in a claims made liability policy.

As we have explained in a previous post on this topic, claims made policies generally cover claims made against the insured during the policy period, even though the underlying conduct may have occurred during an earlier period.  But sometimes, a lawsuit filed during the policy period ...

As policyholder counsel, we’re predisposed to look at insurers with a jaundiced eye. So, we were pleased to read reports that Chubb—the insurer for Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed on March 26—is preparing to make a prompt $350 million payment to the State of Maryland.

Where coverage and a loss far exceeding the coverage limits are clear, there is no good faith reason to delay payment.  Good to see an insurer doing the right thing.

HNRK secured a significant and precedential win for Syngenta Crop Protection LLC this week, when the Delaware Supreme Court upheld a trial court’s two summary judgment rulings that its primary and umbrella insurers could not avoid their coverage obligations on the basis of an attorney’s presuit letter claiming Syngenta’s herbicide Paraquat caused his unnamed clients’ alleged injuries. The court rejected the insurers’ argument that the letter constituted a “claim for damages” first made prior to the period covered by the policies and, in so doing, clarified the ...