June 2025 Insurance Update

We’ve selected five recent insurance decisions for this month’s update.

Foreign insurers will be pleased with the Second Circuit’s revamped view of the New York Convention. In finding that the international treaty is self-executing, the court opened a path for these insurers to arbitrate coverage disputes, even where state law prohibits insurers from doing so.

Coverage under a claims-made policy may hinge on whether two events are related. And this can become muddled where a person of interest in an SEC securities action is an officer of two companies, each being investigated. The Ninth Circuit affirmed that a withdrawn deposition notice of the officer when the SEC was investigating one company was not sufficient to trigger coverage for a later investigation against the other.

When property damage is spread over many years, Massachusetts law will first try to divide the loss among insurers under a fact-based allocation. But where that is not feasible, apportioning loss by time-on-the-risk is the next best thing. That’s how the New Jersey Appellate Division ruled when presiding over an environmental coverage dispute implicating Massachusetts law.

In cases involving gun violence, courts rule differently on whether there is an “occurrence,” especially when the insured is not the shooter. A Michigan appellate court found that there was an “occurrence” from a homeowner’s standpoint when her boyfriend blindly fired shots through her living room window to chase away would be assailants. But a dissenting judge questioned why the majority would consider anything but the shooting itself when “from the standpoint of the insured” language was not part of the “occurrence” definition.

An Ohio appellate court, meanwhile, found no coverage for a husband and wife where the husband pleaded guilty to reckless homicide after firing a weapon while intoxicated. The court found the intentional act and criminal act exclusions applied.

We hope you find this update informative.

— Rob Tugander and Greg Mann