Insurance Update

Additional insureds and applications.  That’s our main theme this month.

Additional insured disputes can sometimes get complicated.  How much coverage the additional insured gets is often a hotly contested issue, especially when the named insured has coverage above the minimum limits it promised to get for the additional insured.  We see different outcomes on this issue, sometimes because the policy language differs, and sometimes because courts view the same language differently.   The Texas Supreme Court recently weighed in on this issue where an umbrella policy covered additional insureds under the primary policy, “but not for broader coverage.”  Does that mean the minimum required limits act as a ceiling?

Insurance disputes can turn on a single word.  A condo association found this out after an employee of the company it hired to service its pool was injured.  As a New Jersey federal court explained, exclusions applying to “any” insured affect additional insureds too.

What happens when you leave out a few details in an application for insurance?  As two policyholders recently learned, you jeopardize coverage.

We’ve written about opioid suits by local governments against drug companies.  But the litigation is broader than that.  We’re also seeing suits by families of overdose victims against prescribing physicians.  And that raises different coverage issues.  This month, we look at a case from Ohio applying the criminal acts exclusion.

We hope you find these cases informative.

Rob Tugander and Greg Mann