Insurance Update

Our April Insurance Update is now available.

Dominance was the theme of this year’s NCAA basketball tournament, with the UConn men’s team winning back-to-back championships and the South Carolina women’s team reclaiming the title with a perfect record. But let’s not forget about the NC State Wolfpack’s magical March run. Led by Miracle Mike and the two DJs, the resilient Wolfpack found a way to win five games in five nights, defeating in-state rival UNC to claim the ACC tournament trophy. The 11th-seeded Wolfpack then marched through the South bracket in the NCCA tournament, upending their neighbor Duke to advance to the Final Four. And the NC State women’s team, behind some sharp three-point shooting of their own, punched their ticket to the Final Four as well. Both Wolfpack squads ultimately fell short, but their grit and determination made for some exciting basketball – and that’s what March Madness is all about.

So it’s only fitting that we begin this month’s update in North Carolina, where the NC Supreme Court gave us three pointers on insurance law in cases involving stacking (the basket and the foul?), workers’ compensation (more than incidental contact), and drivers’ privacy (ending in a tie-up, but the possession arrow was with the insurer).

Meanwhile, in Colorado, the high court went to the monitor and put some time back on the clock for two policyholders, finding that the notice-prejudice rule applies to first-party homeowners policies.

An apartment complex owner lost the play-in game when the Fifth Circuit sent its hurricane-based insurance dispute to arbitration, while a medical device maker’s shot at coverage was blocked when a putative class clarified that it sought only economic damages.

A policyholder landed a floater when a California federal district court judge found that a breach of contract claim arising from a spoofing loss was a wrongful act under a D&O endorsement. But another policyholder was handed a technical for misrepresenting facts in an insurance application.

If college hoops took you away from the latest insurance happenings, don’t worry, you can catch up here.

Robert Tugander and Greg Mann