Policyholder Pulse
Amazon. Bank of America. Citigroup. Dick’s Sporting Goods. JP Morgan. Kroger. Meta. Microsoft. Procter & Gamble. Target. Walt Disney Company. These are just a few of what is a growing list of companies that have offered to cover costs for employees who may now need to travel out of state to receive abortion care in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But companies that are stepping up to further protect their employees’ reproductive rights are choosing to do so in the face of potential public backlash and uncertain legal risks.
An oft-repeated maxim in self-help literature is: “Do not let your circumstances define who you are.” In a similar vein, policyholders should proactively manage situations in which known circumstances may potentially give rise to an eventual claim.
Last month, we 
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A feature of most corporate liability insurance programs is the tower system of coverage: a primary policy with several overlying excess policies stacked atop one another collectively providing coverage up to a desired (or available) limit of liability. Depending on the size and liability exposures of a policyholder, a tower can consist of dozens of policies providing limits totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Adding to this complexity, excess policies often share layers of coverage in quota share arrangements, sometimes subscribing to the same policy but more often issuing separate policies for a stated percentage of the quota share whole. To avoid as much as possible an impenetrable web of conflicting coverage terms, excess policies often “follow form” to the underlying coverage (usually to the primary policy) providing the insurer certainty and providing the policyholder a consistent tower of coverage. It is not always possible, though, to obtain clarity and certainty in tower placements. Insurance companies issuing excess coverage may not wish to agree to all the terms included in the underlying policies, and so may offer additional or differing terms, creating inconsistencies in an otherwise monolithic tower. For example, a primary insurer may refuse to cover punitive damages whereas an excess insurer may agree to do so, or vice versa.
The Biden administration has hit the ground running with executive orders, regulatory and legislative priorities, and cabinet-level and other top posts being announced on a daily basis. Our public policy colleagues have been closely tracking many of the policy priorities of the new administration and 
If 2020 was the year of the pandemic, 2021 appears to be shaping up to be the year of “returning to normal.” So far, most coverage disputes related to COVID-19 have been reactions to direct losses caused by the virus and related measures (i.e., relating to business interruption or event cancellation). In the upcoming months and years, however, many businesses will have to make proactive decisions on how to return to work. It is important for businesses to understand how those decisions may impact a variety of potential insurance coverages, including possible D&O coverage, as this post will discuss. Additionally, now that insurance companies have a better understanding of the types of risks involved with COVID-19, coverage terms and exclusions in policies issued after the pandemic may become drastically different.
Late in June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in