Policyholder Pulse
Does the coverage in commercial general liability (CGL) policies for violations of the right to privacy extend to unwanted intrusions, or is it limited to the disclosure of personal information to a third party? On a recent request for clarification from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Yahoo Inc. v. National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, PA, the California Supreme Court may be poised to answer this question under California law, which could have wide-ranging effects on companies seeking CGL coverage for Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) claims.
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9th Circuit Seeks Guidance from California High Court on the Duty to Defend in TCPA Cases
Latin America continues to be a prime market for business development and expansion; however, insurance coverage for businesses based in or doing business in the region sometimes lags behind what is necessary to sufficiently protect them against risk. Evaluating coverage for companies operating in Latin America requires a specialized skill set—for example, a key consideration when evaluating claims and reviewing coverage programs is that multiple languages are at play for programs that span the Americas. Master policies for companies based in the United States and global policies for multinational corporations will generally be written in English. Companies with operations or offices in Latin America will likely also have in place local policies written in Spanish and/or Portuguese.
A recent decision in the Middle District of Florida, 
Last week, the Ohio Supreme Court unfortunately narrowed the scope of coverage for a subcontractor’s faulty workmanship. The court held in 
A federal court in Michigan just breathed new life into a long-running legal saga—while at the same time issuing a warning shot across the bows of insurers—by declining to dismiss an insured’s bad faith cause of action alleging its insurer wrongly decided to pay one claim before another, to the insured’s detriment.
As the old adage goes, “the devil is in the details.” Insurance policy terms do not always apply in ways that policyholders expect. For this reason, it is imperative to understand how coverages, definitions and exclusions work together to avoid surprise gaps in coverage. The Fifth Circuit found a coverage gap in a recent case holding that settlement contributions from co-defendants met an excess policy’s broad definition of “Other Insurance,” preventing the policyholder from securing coverage for a significant part of its losses.
The conflict between policyholders and insurers over “long-tail” insurance coverage took an unfortunate turn with a recent decision by the New York Court of Appeals on the issue of allocation for long-tail claims. On March 27, 2018, the court issued a 
A little over two months ago, 
By statute, California law holds that willful misconduct—where an insured intends to cause someone harm—is not insurable as a matter of public policy. For years, insurance companies have sought to expand this prohibition to exclude coverage where anyone acts deliberately, regardless of the intent of the insured, or the insured’s intent to cause harm.
injury or property damage is excluded only if the insurer can demonstrate resulting damage was expected or intended by the insured. In