Insurance coverage disputes often begin with a battle over the appropriate forum for litigation. This can impact matters from the judge and jury who hear the case to the body of state law that governs the coverage issues. The U.S. Supreme Court may have given policyholders (and their opponents) more options in fighting this battle.
Over the weekend of January 24-25, 2026, Winter Storm Fern struck a vast swathe of the Eastern United States and Canada. The storm is likely to have had—and for some days to come will continue to have—a vast impact on businesses, governments and a host of human activities. According to preliminary estimates, the economic impact may exceed $100 billion, involving physical property damage, business interruptions, government-ordered closures, power outages, widespread airline cancellations (including ripple effects beyond the weather-affected region), supply chain interruptions, and interruptions of business and governmental services. Burst pipes, roof collapses from snow load, ice dams, prolonged power outages and inaccessible facilities can all lead to significant property damage and business interruption.
Companies in certain industries have years and even decades of experience in defending and resolving “long-tail” liabilities for suits, claims and other proceedings—such as for asbestos-related disease or environmental-related third-party property damage—that involve bodily injuries or property damage spanning multiple years arising out of their historical operations.
The annual Pillsbury Insurance Policyholder Summit is once again approaching!
Taking place on October 28, this signature event will occur simultaneously in our New York, Houston and San Francisco offices, with live collaboration between locations.
The Summit brings together industry leaders and risk management professionals to explore today’s most pressing insurance challenges and opportunities. This year’s program will highlight emerging risks and evolving issues, including AI risk developments, trends in environmental liability and transactional risk insurance, construction coverage for data centers and infrastructure, and managing complex/mass tort claims.
For more information or to register, please contact Tricia Larade.
General and products liability policies are a cornerstone of risk management for businesses, providing protection against alleged liability because of bodily injury, property damage, and personal or advertising injury claims. These policies are often paired with self-insured retentions (SIRs). Although some policies with SIRs may provide “first dollar” coverage, particularly for defense costs, an SIR typically represents the amount of covered loss a company agrees to pay out of pocket before the primary layer insurer’s coverage attaches. While common, SIRs can introduce many traps for the unwary—especially if the SIR is applied on a “per-occurrence” basis (or, in some policies, a “per-claim” basis) without an aggregate cap.
In the recently published case Bartel v. Chicago Title Insurance Company, a California appellate court reaffirmed longstanding California law on insurers’ broad duty to defend even in the face of complicated underlying facts, finding that failure to investigate all potential avenues for coverage amounted to bad faith as a matter of law.
It’s said that an ant can carry fifty times its own weight. That’s nothing.
A recent decision out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit provides a compelling reminder to policyholders and their counsel: Even the smallest word in an insurance policy—and even the placement of a punctuation mark—can carry tremendous weight. In fact, it can alter the meaning of an entire insurance policy. In Paloma Resources, L.L.C. v. Axis Insurance Co., the court vacated summary judgment in favor of the insurer based on the placement of a single word—“the”—in an exclusion clause.
In a recent post, we briefly explored potential insurance coverage for tariff- and trade-related losses, particularly in the context of escalating global trade tensions and U.S. enforcement trends. Since then, enforcement activity under the False Claims Act (FCA) continues to intensify, particularly around customs compliance. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are closely examining how goods are classified, valued and routed. These developments present complex compliance challenges and potential exposure for companies across industries, including importers, logistics providers and government contractors.
When wildfires, floods or other disasters strike, multiple policyholders can be affected in similar ways. But historically, each policyholder would take on their insurance company alone—a tough task, especially for individual policyholders and especially when any given policyholder’s claim is dwarfed by the relative legal and financial might of the insurer. The recent ruling in Pitkin v. State Farm, however, shows how class actions can level the playing field.
In today’s volatile global economy, companies are learning the hard way that political shocks—whether through trade sanctions, military conflict or abrupt regulatory change—can wreak havoc on supply chains. And worse, many are discovering that their existing insurance coverage may not offer relief.
