Applying California law, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California has held that an antitrust exclusion in a D&O policy bars coverage for lawsuits alleging violation of antitrust laws, violation...more
The California Court of Appeal, applying California law, has affirmed a trial court’s decision dismissing claims with prejudice against two excess carriers for the insureds’ failure to allege exhaustion of the underlying...more
Most jurisdictions, at least in theory, permit insureds to recover extra-contractual payments/judgments from their insurers under bad faith or negligence theories. Jurisdictions are less uniform on whether or under what...more
With increasing frequency, insurers are challenging the sufficiency and clarity of settlement demands they failed to previously accept. The insurer’s challenges can take many forms but most focus on a demand not being written...more
Insurance laws may vary slightly between jurisdictions but major principles are nearly uniform. These include requirements that an insurer should draft clear and unambiguous exclusions and should identify and fully inform the...more
In Truck Ins. Exch. v. Kaiser Cement, 321 Cal. Rptr. 3d 761, 549 P.3d 781 (2024), the California Supreme Court answered the question left open by Montrose Chem. Corp. v. Superior Ct., 9 Cal. 5th 215 (2020) (Montrose III): for...more
Insurers are frequently asked to satisfy their duty of good faith and fair dealing by entertaining reasonable settlement offers within the combined limits of the policies. However, primary and excess insurers do not always...more
On June 7, the California Supreme Court issued an important opinion clarifying the circumstances under which an insured may trigger coverage under an excess policy in relation to a loss spanning multiple policy periods. This...more
What happens between a primary and excess liability insurer when their mutual insured is hit with a verdict $2.15 million over the primary limit and the excess insurer was not put on notice until after the verdict? This was...more
Join Goldberg Segalla attorneys Zachary D. Oliva and Thomas M. Wester for a free interactive webinar as they discuss the duties and obligations of excess insurers when presented with high-value claims....more
Excess insurers facing claims should heavily scrutinize their policies for conditions that may be unsatisfactory —even if seemingly immaterial— because they can provide a complete defense to coverage. In a recent case, an...more
Hosts Lynda A. Bennett and Eric Jesse of Lowenstein Sandler discuss how to access a tower of insurance coverage in light of the recent decision in Pharmacia Corporation v. Arch Specialty Insurance Company, where an...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, applying South Carolina law, has ruled that an insurer had no duty to defend an insured in a defamation action because its policy provided excess coverage, even where...more
For nearly 100 years, courts across the country have followed the established majority view that an excess insurer may not avoid its coverage obligation by imposing technical requirements on the manner in which underlying...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, applying New Jersey law, has affirmed that an excess policy did not provide coverage when an insured could not satisfy an express condition precedent to coverage...more
The excess and surplus lines insurance market is a rapidly-growing avenue for the placement of insurance policies in the United States. Many alien (non-U.S.) insurance carriers write surplus lines insurance coverage via...more
In a cautionary tale for insurers everywhere, a California court recently ordered two excess carriers to pay their policy limits twice for a single policy term. Why? Because in the policies at issue, the policy limits paid...more
Applying well-settled Wisconsin law, a federal district court found that an insurer had no duty to indemnify an oral hygiene product manufacturer for tainted products after determining that the losses did not result from an...more
In Vizio Inc. v. Arch Insurance Co., a case stemming from a class action settlement, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals clarified several areas of California law involving the interaction of primary and excess insurance...more
Employees of a subcontractor were injured on a construction project, and they sued the owner and the general contractor. The subcontractor’s excess insurer, Mt. Hawley Insurance Co., disclaimed additional insured coverage to...more
Today on “Don't Take No for an Answer,” co-hosts Lynda A. Bennett and Eric Jesse of the Insurance Recovery Group at Lowenstein Sandler discuss how to deal with excess insurers who refuse to follow a primary insurer’s...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, applying Illinois and Nevada law, has held that prior or pending litigation exclusions bar coverage for a contempt motion filed in a civil action commenced before...more
Burlington Insurance Company issued primary policies to a contractor in 2013-14 and 2014-15, and Century was the excess insurer for 2013-14. The contractor was sued for property damage resulting from its construction work...more
Applying North Carolina law, a federal district court has held that an excess insurer had no duty to indemnify for a 2020 securities class action that related back to various antitrust lawsuits filed prior to the applicable...more
The widely publicized U.S. Supreme Court case addressing Harvard University’s (Harvard) admissions practices not only concerns a significant constitutional issue but also serves as a cautionary tale for businesses and...more