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Policyholder PulsePublished on:
Don’t Let Them Off the Hook: Ninth Circuit Affirms an Insurer’s Broad Duty to Defend
As the adage goes, don’t make a promise you cannot keep. An insurance policy, like any other contract, involves a commitment from both sides. For third-party liability policies, an insurer typically 
commits to a broad duty to defend the policyholder against any suits alleging claims that have a potential for coverage under the insurance policy. However, when a claim arises, insurers have a financial interest in trying to get off the hook. At times, policyholders need to turn to the courts for help reeling insurers in and forcing them to follow through with their commitments.
Recently, in Hanover Insurance Company v. Paul M. Zagaris, Inc., the Ninth Circuit ruled that an insurer had to defend its insured, a real estate brokerage firm, in a proposed class action suit because there was a potential for coverage for at least one of the alleged claims. The plaintiffs alleged that the real estate brokerage firm had received undisclosed kickbacks from the sale of natural-hazard disclosure reports to its clients. Specifically, they claimed that the firm breached its fiduciary duties, deceived its clients by omission, engaged in constructive fraud, and was unjustly enriched, among other things.
even in 
Excess liability policies often include a limitation requiring the “exhaustion” of underlying policy limits before excess coverage is triggered. If the policyholder settles with an underlying insurer for less than the underlying policy limits, excess insurers may dispute whether the settlement qualifies as “exhaustion.”
But many companies still do not necessarily view cyber insurance as a “must-have” type of insurance, like general liability or property insurance. Some companies may believe their potential cyber exposure is minimal or simply think that cyber coverage is cost prohibitive. A 
like other industries, fashion—design houses, retailers, textile manufacturers, modeling agencies—carries property, D&O, cyber, and many other lines of insurance. But unique aspects of the fashion world, and recent litigation trends affecting it, underscore the importance for the fashion industry to understand insurance in order to maximize successful recovery of insurance assets. Here, we comment briefly on three areas: IP, employment, and antitrust.
any good, you give the restaurant a date, time, and number of people. So why should insurers be able to issue reservations of rights where they quote half the policy and say they may deny coverage at some time, based on some unspecified provision? The South Carolina Supreme Court was presented with that question and decided that insurers need to provide greater specificity or risk losing their reservations completely.
