When a company receives a claim or lawsuit, it is critical to provide timely notice to its insurers. But when the claim is first made, sufficient facts may not yet be known to indicate which policy will respond. Many policies also contain language that purports to shift coverage to earlier insurance policies for claims that “relate back” to earlier events. As a best practice, policyholders and their brokers often provide notice of a claim under all policies that might cover a loss, to ensure that coverage is not defeated by failure to meet any obligation to give notice. This method of first providing notice for claims to multiple insurers, and then working with insurers to determine the correct policy to respond, is a well-established practice for managing insurance claims. Once the proper policy to respond to the claim is established, exclusions in the other policies kick in to avoid double coverage.
Articles Posted in Brokers
Check Under the Hood: Optimize Your Insurance Coverage with an Attorney Review of Your Policies before Renewal
When you’re buying a new car, you rely on a good salesperson to impress you with all of its features and gadgets. But when it’s time for maintenance, or when something goes wrong, you don’t go back to that salesperson to look at the problem. You find a trustworthy mechanic. At insurance renewal time, it may seem like you’re just buying a new set of policies, and that your broker is the only person you need to find out what’s available on the market. But policy renewal is also part of scheduled maintenance for your company’s risk management program. A policyholder-side insurance coverage attorney is the mechanic that can help you make sure it runs right.
Coverage for Legal Marijuana Risk: Seeing through the Smoke and Mirrors
We’ve come a long way since the days of Timothy Leary—both in terms of marijuana legalization, and in the diversity of business insurance products that have reached the market to insure marijuana-related risks. As of this blog post, more than 20 states have legalized marijuana for medical use, including eight states that have also legalized it recreationally. At the federal level, however, marijuana continues to be a Schedule I controlled substance, making it illegal for any purpose. Whether and to what extent the federal prohibition will be enforced by the Trump administration is not yet known. As the legal marijuana industry continues to grow apace, industry participants would do well to consider the insurance products available to them and potential pitfalls for the unwary.
It Was Only a Slip! London Insurers’ Communication with Counsel via Brokers Constituted Waiver of Privilege
They do some things differently in London. But just because they have different customs across the pond doesn’t mean they get to play by different rules—at least not in American courts. That was the message a federal magistrate judge in the Eastern District of New York delivered when she ruled that Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s had waived attorney-client privilege by communicating with their counsel through a London broker.