Policyholder Pulse
A few weeks back, we told you how South Carolina May No Longer Hold Insurers’ Reservations. In that post we left you with a teaser: “There’s more to this case.”
In fact, Harleysville Group Insurance v. Heritage Communities, Inc. does more than just take insurers to task with regard to their vague reservations of rights. Reaffirming that, in a case involving both covered and excluded losses, the insurer bears the burden of proving which damages are excluded from coverage, Harleysville shows how easily an insurer can find itself in a bind when trying to prove “no coverage” at the same time and in the same proceedings that it is providing a defense for its insured.
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.