Coverage & Claims

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Federal Investigation

Federal lawmakers recently called on several agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), to investigate whether the natural gas industry has provided an accurate picture to investors of the long-term profitability of their wells and the amount of gas these wells can produce. …
Read More Hydrofracking Under Fire: Federal and State Lawmakers Turn Up Heat on Natural Gas Industry and NY Attorney General Issues Subpoenas to Five Companies

The Massachusetts Appeals Court recently concluded that an insured could not claim property insurance benefits following a fire at its restaurant, because the insured had actual knowledge that its fire-suppression system was no longer functional, and because the insured had exclusive control over the system’s maintenance. …
Read More Massachusetts Court Rules for Carrier in Property Dispute, Orders Return of Advance

A recent decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has left resounding implications for insurers with respect to benefit plans under ERISA.  In Cyr v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co., case number 07-56869, an en banc panel of the Court held that insurers can be sued directly under ERISA by plan participants even when not acting as the plan administrator. …
Read More Insurer Sued Directly Under ERISA

In Zurich Insurance Company PLC v Hayward [2011] EWCA Civ 641 the Court of Appeal held that Zurich was entitled to bring new evidence of fraudulent behaviour by an individual who was injured at work despite the fact that issues as to his good faith had already been raised in a prior action. …
Read More UK: Court of Appeal Rules on Issue Res Judicata in the Context of a Fraudulently Exaggerated Personal Injury Claim

Transocean Ltd. said Friday that insurers of its sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig have asked a federal judge to decide if BP Plc and other owners of the Macondo well are entitled to any insurance coverage for the April 20, 2010 disaster. …
Read More Deepwater Horizon: Transocean’s Insurers Seek Federal Court Opinion on Payment to BP

A recent Business Insurance article reported that Japanese insurers have paid almost $2.27 billion to cover approximately 125,000 claims associated with earthquake damage to personal dwellings stemming from the March 11 tsunami and earthquake that devastated Japan.  According to the General Insurance Association of Japan (GIAJ), the number of claims is expected to increase as efforts continue to restore heavily damaged areas of the country. …
Read More Personal Dwelling Losses Top $2 billion in Japan

The process of high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or “hydrofracking,” was first used commercially by Halliburton in 1949. It involves injecting millions of gallons of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, deep into the ground at high pressure in order to break up dense shale rock formations and release trapped natural gas to the surface.  The risks associated with hydrofracking, however, are numerous and diverse, affecting every stage of the process from transporting and drilling to waste storage and disposal. …
Read More “The Risks of Hydrofracking” and “Insurance for Hydrofracking”

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that the state’s workers’ compensation statute does not bar a lawsuit by a subcontractor’s employee against the general contractor, even if the employee previously collected workers’ compensation benefits from the general contractor’s insurer.  See Wentworth v. Henry C. Becker Custom Bldg., No. SJC-10806 (May 23, 2011). …
Read More Massachusetts High Court: Workers’ Comp Bar Does Not Apply to Subcontractor Employee’s Suit Against General Contractor

Business partners BHP Billiton Ltd. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. were recently hit with a series of proposed class actions in Arkansas alleging their hydraulic fracturing (“hydrofracking”) operations and compression stations are contaminating nearby groundwater, soil, water wells and air as well as causing dangerous seismic activity. …
Read More Hydrofracking: Recent Flurry of Class Actions in Arkansas

In a ruling written by former Supreme Court Justice David Souter, sitting by designation, the First Circuit concluded that Cynosure, Inc., was owed no coverage by St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company under a Massachusetts commercial policy insuring against injury caused by advertising. …
Read More Reversing District Court, First Circuit Finds Cynosure Owed No Coverage for Fax Blasts Suit