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Fine art collections—both public and private—are concentrated in disaster-prone areas like California and Florida, where wealthy individuals often retire. And as the impacts of extreme weather ravage west coast forests and east coast beaches, art collectors in high-risk areas watch their insurance premiums swell and coverage shrink.…

Continue Reading Fine Art in Not-So-Fine Weather

Extreme weather events—such as heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and tornadoes—may create major protection gaps for insureds. In California, rising temperatures and massive heat waves have led the California Department of Insurance (the “Department”) to rethink risk solutions and insurance programs that protect the state’s communities from the risks associated with extreme heat. While the Department’s proposed solution applies only to coverage for local governments, Tribes, and public health agencies, it is a “hot” topic among many Californians, as insurance professionals and policyholders debate the Department’s proposed approval of parametric insurance.…

Continue Reading The Heated Debate Over the California Department of Insurance’s Heat Community Policy and Parametric Underwriting

Insurers generally have a right to conduct a full, fair, and thorough investigation of a claim. Depending on policy language, one investigative tool available to insurers is the examination under oath, or an “EUO.” In an EUO, a representative of the policyholder is sworn-in, and an employee of or attorney for the insurer asks questions related to the claim. EUOs may be a condition precedent to coverage, meaning failure to appear and comply with a reasonable EUO request may void coverage for the claim. See, e.g., Quality Health Supply Corp. v. Nationwide Ins., No. 2021-06955, 2023 WL 3486573 (N.Y. App. Div. May 17, 2023); Raymond v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 614 F. Supp. 3d 1303 (N.D. Ga. 2022).…

Continue Reading The ABCs of EUOs

For many, the “metaverse” sounds like some obscure sci-fi fantasyland. You may be asking, where is it? How does one get there? Chances are, if you are reading this article on a screen then you are already interacting with what could be described as the metaverse. One thing is certain though, if the metaverse is…

While COVID-19 dominated the insurance coverage landscape in 2021, it was not the only subject of significant decisions in the insurance space. Directors and Officers coverage (“D&O”) and cyber insurance continued to make headlines while other coverage lines left the industry questioning what is to come in 2022. We highlight a few of the most impactful trends and cases in this 2021 review, and we look forward to what 2022 may deliver in the world of insurance coverage.
Continue Reading Year in Review: Top Insurance Cases of 2021

Even an insurance practitioner’s grandmother would agree that an omitted comma can have dire consequences: compare “Let’s eat grandma with “Let’s eat, grandma.”  Yet, to the possible dismay of grammar purists and grandmothers, alike, and despite acknowledging that “the placement (or omission) of one comma can make the difference,” a federal court recently found that an omitted comma in an insurance policy provision had no impact on the policy’s meaning.
Continue Reading Grammatical Imprecision Continues to Fuel Coverage Disputes

Not surprisingly, COVID-19 business interruption insurance disputes dominated media headlines for most of 2020. Nonetheless, there were a number of other insurance rulings that will undoubtedly shape the coverage landscape. Policyholders enjoyed a number of significant wins including significant victories related to COVID-19 business interruption cases. The start of a new year gives us an…

2018 was a big year for insurance coverage cases, especially those involving social engineering phishing, spoofing and other schemes of trickery and deception.

The insurance recovery lawyers at Hunton Andrews Kurth have compiled their list of the top insurance cases of 2018.  A copy of the Review can be found here.