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An unexpected or catastrophic loss can force any company out of business, even if it is insured.  You must understand your company’s risks and how your insurance policies cover those risks in order to manage them and maintain stability.

Having the correct insurance in place is only the first step. Property and business interruption insurance policies are often complex, and your suppliers, customers and other business partners’ insurance situation may have a direct impact on you as well.  Even if your business doesn’t suffer any direct physical damage to its facilities following a natural disaster or other loss, your customers or suppliers may have, and that could result in what is known as a “supply chain” or “contingent business interruption” loss of revenue and sales.  If you are unprepared when a disaster strikes, you may miss out on substantial amounts of insurance coverage to which you may be entitled.  The time to prepare is before a disaster occurs.  Take the time now to understand your insurance coverage and other risk transfer methods and opportunities.  Know your rights.  And put a plan in place to protect yourself, your employees, and your property before the loss occurs.  Then, if disaster strikes, you’ll be in a better position to make it through and to access your insurance coverage to help restore operations.

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91509892-b-coverage-e1504651099803-199x300Coverage B under traditional Commercial General Liability (CGL) policies may be the least understood coverage that nearly every company carries. Coverage B provides liability protection for claims of Personal and Advertising Injury, such as false arrest, libel or slander, and violation of a person’s right to privacy, among others. Yet with so much recent focus on cyber liability insurance and the protection that these policies can provide for the inadvertent exposure of personal information stored electronically, Coverage B gets little attention. This is mostly deserved, as many CGL policies expressly exclude coverage for the loss or exposure of electronic data, and Coverage B applies in mostly non-traditional circumstances. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that for many claims, particularly those involving non-traditional facts, Coverage B will apply.

Recent events highlight the importance and continued relevance of Coverage B. For example, a recent case in the news involves a health insurer being sued by its insureds for mailing them information regarding HIV medication in transparent envelopes, thereby exposing their identity and the medication they were seeking. The suit alleges that the insurer negligently revealed confidential information and, given the reported facts, should trigger Coverage B (as well as other coverages).

Coverage B also applies in circumstances beyond improper disclosure of confidential information. In another recent case, a developer was sued by one of its occupying tenants because construction equipment necessary to expand the development blocked the ingress and egress to the tenant’s property. The CGL insurer initially denied the developer’s request for defense, contending that there were no allegations of “personal injury” or “property damage” necessary to trigger Coverage A. The insured correctly responded that the claims brought against it included “invasion of the right to private occupancy,” thereby triggering the duty to defend under Coverage B. Upon further consideration, the CGL insurer agreed and provided the insured with a defense. The duty to defend one claim is the duty to defend all.

In another case, a general contractor working in a war zone was sued by one of its subcontractors for unpaid contract balance. In addition to seeking payment of the alleged outstanding balance, the subcontractor claimed that it was held against its will for a period of an hour by a group of armed mercenaries working on behalf of the general contractor. This allegation, although wholly unrelated to the underlying dispute of unpaid fees, was sufficient to trigger Coverage B under the general contractor’s CGL policy, providing the general contractor with defense and indemnity.

In short, Coverage B applies in many non-traditional circumstances (as well as more traditional ones), and should always be considered by companies when facing liability for claims other than “personal injury” or “property damage.”

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As the powerful storm that is Hurricane Harvey looms in the Gulf of Mexico, Houston attorneys Vince Morgan and Tamara Bruno discuss what businesses and other organizations in the affected area should do immediately in order to maximize insurance recovery.

Key Takeaways:

    • Category 3 Hurricane Harvey is projected to have sustained winds of 120 m.p.h. and disastrous amounts of rain, with a possible storm surge.

 

    • Business interruptions are already happening in advance of Harvey’s landfall.

 

  • Policyholders should take key steps to maintain and maximize insurance coverage for Harvey-related losses.
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In two posts earlier this year—South Carolina May No Longer Hold Insurers’ Reservations and The Insurer’s Mixed-Coverage Burden—we told you about an important decision issued by the South Carolina Supreme Court in Harleysville Group Insurance v. Heritage Communities, Inc. Those posts were written shortly after the court issued its original opinion on January 11, 2017. But on July 26, 2017, the court issued a new opinion replacing the original. So what has changed? Not much … and that’s a good thing for policyholders.iStock-817281638-update-300x232

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As the cliché saying goes: “When it comes to love, never settle for less than you deserve.” But when it comes to insurance coverage, sometimes settling for less than the full limits of a policy is an effective compromise that saves time and avoids costly litigation. However, if losses may reach excess policies, then policyholders should take a second look before signing on the dotted line. iStock-628507194-tired-300x232Excess 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.”

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Every single industry or business in this day and age has either been the victim of a cyber attack or is concerned they will be next. A few examples from the last couple of months show how widespread the problem is. In June, a global ransomeware attack quickly spread across 64 countries, impacting organizations from law firms, banks and governments to food producers and hospitals. The attackers demanded $300 in Bitcoin—approximately $977,000 U.S. dollars in total—from each victim to unlock their data. At the annual DefCon computer security conference in late July, hackers took less than 90 minutes to hack voter-ballot machines and at least one hacker even broke into the system wirelessly, suggesting that U.S. computer-ballot boxes may be susceptible to attack.

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The costs and penalties associated with a cyber attack or data breach should not be underestimated. For example, NPR recently calculated the average cost of a health care breach at more than $2.2 million, “not to mention the reputation damage.” And the FCC recently ordered AT&T to pay $25 million in connection with the exposure of more than 250,000 U.S. customers’ information.

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Cyber insurance continues to be one of the hottest topics in the insurance industry. In the last several years it has evolved from a little-known specialty product to a standard purchase for some corporate risk departments. By now, most companies generally are aware that cyber attacks present substantial risks. Many unfortunately have first-hand experience as victims of an attack. iStock-488221194-cyber-attack-300x167But 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 recent D.C. Circuit decision is a sobering reminder that cyber insurance should at least be considered in connection with a company’s risk management plan, and is probably a “must-have” for companies that maintain records containing a substantial amount of personal information.

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It’s now accepted wisdom that virtually all public company mergers and acquisitions will be challenged with at least one lawsuit—over 95% of them are. A less well-publicized form of challenge—and one that is both fascinating and perplexing for those interested in securities litigation—is the unique creature of Delaware law known as the appraisal proceeding. Under Delaware General Corporation Law §262, shareholders dissenting from a merger on grounds that the share price they’ll receive is inadequate “shall be entitled to an appraisal by the Court of Chancery of the fair value of the stockholder’s shares of stock.” If the court finds that the deal price is lower than fair market value, the acquiring corporation must pay the difference to the dissenting shareholders, plus interest. The court may also award their attorneys’ and experts’ fees, which can be significant. This process has created a cottage industry of “appraisal arbitrage,” in which hedge funds purchase shares in hopes of securing a higher price for those shares through appraisal. Fortunately, D&O insurance might be available to cover the acquired company’s defense and other costs.

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The startup guys in the hit television series Silicon Valley might be surprised to learn that the California legislature has expanded the scope of mandatory Workers’ Comp coverage to include their corporate officers, directors and working partners. The new law, effective January 1, 2017, sweeps in a broadiStock-504017662-workers-comp-300x264 range of individuals, unless they file a written opt-out. These changes to the California Labor Code are creating confusion for some businesses regarding which employees must now be included on workers’ comp insurance coverage. The consequences of noncompliance can be severe, and businesses would be well-advised to ensure that they have secured the necessary additional coverage or obtained the necessary opt-outs from affected officers, directors, and working partners.

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Fashion is sexy; insurance is not. So it’s easy to think of the two separately. But there are many points of intersection. Some of those intersections are not industry-specific: iStock-511438211-fashion-insurance-300x200like 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.

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