Breaking Down Bad Faith: Insurers’ Good Faith Duties and Defending Bad Faith Claims
JONES DAY PRESENTS®: Insurance Implications of the California Consumer Privacy Act
If you’ve received a settlement check from an insurance company after a car accident, property damage claim, or injury settlement, you might be wondering: how long is an insurance check good for? While holding onto it for a...more
Tendering policy limits to an insured in response to a Notice of Intent to Litigate, under section 627.70152, Florida Statutes (2021), precludes insureds from recovering pre-suit attorney’s fees from their property insurers...more
Long-tail claims involve continuous or progressive injuries that occur over the course of multiple years. Often these claims occur in the context of long-latency diseases, such as those arising from asbestos exposure, or...more
Issues to Watch - 1. Causation—What is an insured’s burden when the claimed loss involves a mix of covered and non-covered causes? Overstreet v. Allstate Vehicle & Prop. Ins. Co., No. 21-10462, 2022 WL 1579278 (5th Cir....more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently addressed the issue of whether tendering a policy limits check on a liability policy with an overbroad release could constitute bad faith. In Pelaez v....more
In Jowite Limited Partnership v. Federal Insurance Company, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland issued a rare opinion addressing whether “collapse” is a covered “ensuing loss” under an all-risks...more
When the National Weather Service names a storm heading in your direction, you know to expect wind and water. This can create a quandary for property insurers. Is water damage from a named windstorm caused by the flood or the...more
In Knickerbocker Village Inc. v. Lexington Insurance Co., New York’s Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, dictated a clear rule for single-insured cases regarding the discovery of an insurer’s treatment of insurance...more
In S.O. Beach Corp. v. Great American Insurance Company of New York, No. 18-1967 (11th Cir. Oct. 31, 2019), the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in full to the insurer, finding there...more
In the face of a fire that results in damage to multiple units of a commercial building, it can be difficult for insurers to determine the scope and extent of coverage available under a commercial general liability policy....more
In a rare foray into insurance law, London’s Privy Council considered the interpretation of a Contractors’ All Risk (CAR) policy in Sun Alliance (Bahamas) Ltd v Scandi Enterprises Ltd (Bahamas), and overturned the decision of...more
Hurricane Nate made landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast near the city of Biloxi on Sunday, October 8, 2017, as a Category 1 Hurricane. The eastern quadrant of the storm’s center also passed over significant portions of...more
Cozen O’Connor attorneys Thomas McKay III, Richard Mackowsky, Charles Jesuit, and Melissa Brill recently secured summary judgment from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in favor of Great...more
Last month, heavy rainstorms in California brought to the forefront the issue of what is a “flood” under California law, particularly in regard to rain and surface water. We noted a California court held “flood” in its plain...more
Until very recently, the scarcity of water and the decline in oil prices in California prompted the joke that oil was being used as fracking fluid to get water out of the ground. In the last week, however, so much rain has...more
We have previously featured New Jersey District Court decisions addressing “unequivocal” denials in the context of policies’ suit limitation provisions. In the latest, Ryan v. Liberty Mut. Fire Ins. Co., No. 14-6308...more
Does the efficient proximate cause rule serve to afford coverage for the additional costs to rebuild the foundation of a home in compliance with changed building code requirements beyond the sublimit of liability of an...more
It’s said that “defeat is an orphan,” but insurable losses often have multiple, concurrent causes. In some cases, one or more of those causes might be outside the scope of coverage, either by omission or exclusion. In Sebo v....more
Harris v. Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Company, __ F.3d __, 2016 WL 4174381 (6th Cir. Aug. 8, 2016) - Case at a Glance - Plaintiffs purchased a home located in a federal flood zone, but they did not purchase...more
It is well-established that claim processing and wrongful denial of coverage disputes involving federal flood insurance policies belong in federal court because they present substantial questions of federal law. The U.S....more
As this blog has reported, exclusions and limits for flood coverage have generally held up against the tide of claims arising from Superstorm Sandy. Now that the water is gone, however, new losses have been discovered, and...more
In National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Aspen Specialty Ins. Co., 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 16074 (2d. Cir. Aug. 31, 2016), Amtrak sought the entire $675 million of available coverage from a number of its insurers for damages...more
Courts across the country (and particularly since Super Storm Sandy in 2012) have consistently held that, in litigation involving a dispute concerning the investigation, adjustment, or payment of a flood claim under the...more