A recent case of interest involved a plaintiff who worked at an IKEA store for twenty five years. During his employment, he enrolled in and received basic and supplemental term life insurance coverage, and his spouse maintained coverage as a dependent.
Whether property has suffered ‘direct physical loss’ when it cannot be used for its intended purpose is the first hurdle that most policyholders will face in the 1,500 lawsuits that have been filed regarding property insurance for COVID-19.
As the novel coronavirus pandemic spread across the country last year, Rockhurst University in Kansas City faced an unprecedented financial crisis. With students suddenly being sent home and major school events canceled, the virus halted the major revenue stream that kept the university afloat.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently found that insurers did not have to defend a construction company from the San Francisco 49ers’ claim that the company negligently failed to construct the NFL team’s stadium to be accessible to all people with physical disabilities.
On continuous environmental-injury cases, commercial liability insurers are being sued to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more than their proportionate share, and insurer bad faith is not the basis for the disproportionate liability in these cases.
After years of legal dispute, The Hartford has entered into a settlement agreement and release with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), wherein the insurer would pay $650 million (before tax) for sexual abuse claims against the BSA associated with policies mainly issued in the 1970s.
Gallatin County and a snowplow driver who was involved in a 2017 collision have filed a complaint in federal district court against Atlantic Special Insurance Company, alleging that the insurer acted in bad faith and breached its contract with the county.
Four drugmakers are set to face trial on Monday in a lawsuit by several large counties in California that are seeking more than $50 billion over claims the companies helped fuel an opioid epidemic by deceptively marketing addictive painkillers.
Despite the ongoing pandemic, civil jury trials have resumed in many venues throughout the United States. There is little doubt that the frequency of civil jury trials will increase with more widespread distribution of vaccines and the implementation of new social distancing courtroom protocols.
First-party coverage evaluations and investigations that are dependent upon the insured’s cooperation can become frustrating when the insured refuses to provide necessary documents and other information.
The key issue in insurance bad faith litigation is whether the claims professional reasonably handled the claim. Throughout the claims-handling process, the claims professional should constantly ask him-or-herself whether the investigation is sufficient to support a coverage determination and how someone might challenge that determination.
A new report from the state’s Office of Insurance Regulation found Florida accounted for over 76% of all homeowners’ litigation in the United States in 2019.
In Hinojos v. State Farm Lloyds, the Supreme Court of Texas addressed liability under the Texas Prompt Payment of Claims Act (the ‘TPPCA’) when an insurer timely pays only part of a claim.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas could be left to pay for the legal defense and damages resulting from more than a dozen lawsuits filed against the state’s power grid manager following the February storm.
