Insurance Update

Our November Insurance Update is here.

We report on two cases featured in past updates that have now made their way up to state supreme courts.

In Vanderbilt, the Connecticut Supreme Court upholds an intermediate appellate court’s broad application of the “occupational disease” exclusion.  The court ruled that the exclusion is not limited only to claims by the insured’s employees, but also extends to any individual that contracted an occupational disease while working for other employers.

Claims representative can breathe a sigh of relief now that the Washington Supreme Court has reversed the appeals court ruling in Keodalah.  The state high court ruled that employee adjusters are not personally liable for insurance bad faith.

The Washington Supreme Court has made news for another reason.  In T-Mobile, it departs from the customary rule about the effect of insurance certificates.

And speaking of bad faith, the Louisiana Supreme Court decides whether a one-year or ten-year statute of limitations applies to a first-party bad faith action.

The Fourth Circuit tackles an interesting question.  Does a workers’ compensation exclusion in an auto policy apply when an employee is struck by the employer’s truck driven by a non-employee?

A federal district court applies the Virginia Supreme Court’s AES v. Steadfast decision in a gun brandishing case.

And we round out our issue with … well, an inflatable beach ball case.  It was not all fun and games for one participant at Rum Fest 2017 when he sustained beach ball-related injuries. Nor was the festival’s promoter amused to learn that a beach ball is an “amusement device, ” meaning it falls within a class of excluded items under its liability policy.

We hope that you enjoy the update and wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.