A recent 8th Circuit Court of Appeals case, applying Missouri law, reminds us that shoddy workmanship may not be covered by your commercial general liability insurance. This also means that if an owner claims your faulty workmanship caused problems on the project, you may have to pay those damages out of your own pocket, not the insurers. In this case, American Family Mutual Insurance Co., S.I. v. Mid-American Grain Distributors, [...]
KEEPS CHUGGING ALONG... Railroads have been asking for additional insured coverage from their vendors, contractors and lessees for some time now. The body of case law challenging that coverage is slowly building. In the railroads' favor. Let's take a look together at the most recent case for some additional nuggets of insight. In Norfolk Southern Ry Co., v. National Union Fire Ins. of Pittsburgh, PA, 999 F. Supp. 2d 906 (U.S. Dist. [...]
This should be no surprise to my dear readers! The Wisconsin Supreme court has recently ruled that manure contamination is not a covered loss under the standard CGL policy. In Wilson Mutual Ins. Co. v. Falk, 2014 WI 136 (Wis. 2014), the court ruled that manure runoff, which had contaminated several nearby drinking water wells, was a pollutant and therefore excluded from coverage. The Wilson policy covered losses for property damages and bodily injury. [...]
♣WE ARE GREEN TODAY FOR ST. PATRICK’S DAY!♣ We can fairly sum up the history of pollution insurance coverage with one word: confusion. This is because underwriters and ISO forms have made it pretty clear that almost all pollution and environmental losses are not covered; yet courts have found creative ways to insist that they are a covered loss. This push and pull has left most of us confused as to whether or not it [...]
Railroads can be covered for losses caused in whole or in part by a contractor. If a railroad is added to the contractor’s Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance policy as an additional insured, all losses which arise out of the contractor’s work should be covered. The case of Cont’l Cas. Co. v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 238 F.3d 941, 944 (8th Cir. 2000) explains this concept of risk transference. There, Burlington Northern R.R. Co. contracted with [...]
ISO has issued new Commercial General Liability (CGL) forms and endorsements that are operative as of April 2013. Many of these new policy provisions will affect our readers. Some take away coverage, others add more, and a few new ISO provisions set forth clarification of the meaning of existing forms. I will periodically discuss in the Guide how these new provisions change coverage in future policies. Many states have already adopted these changes, including [...]
All policies contain a provision which tells the policyholder how to inform the insurance company about a loss. The provisions are called “notice of loss” clauses. They are considered a condition precedent to payment under the policy. A condition precedent is an act that must occur before indemnity will arise under the insurance contract. In other words, the policyholder must follow the notice of loss requirements before he will get paid. Courts, however, are not so firm [...]
I often discuss the role of the courts in broadening coverage for additional insureds in a Commercial General Insurance (CGL) policy. Here is another case where a court has extending coverage – probably well beyond what the underwriter intended at the time the policy was issued. In the case of Evanston Ins. Co. v. ATOFINA Petrochemicals, Inc., 256 S.W.3d 660, 666 (Tex. 2008), ATOFINA contracted with Triple S Industrial [...]
Because they are more and more commonly used, it is worth our time to look into these clauses and understand how they affect both the policyholder and the insurance company. Let’s start with discussing what these clauses mean. What is a mutual waiver of subrogation clause? These clauses are commonly found in construction and landlord tenant contracts. The language insists that the parties to the contract mutually agree to waive [...]
Adding another company as an Additional Insured under your own Commercial General Liability (CGL) policy is a common practice. The addition protects that other entity against your company’s negligence. The coverage is almost always limited to “your” work, meaning the work being performed by the Named Insured, not the Additional Insured. This is commonly done in conjunction with an indemnity agreement between the parties. Additional Insured status is a method [...]
