court insurance

Insurance Scrawl
Commentary on the law of insurance, the insurance of business, and the business of insurance. A weblog by policyholder lawyer Marc Mayerson.

• Insurability of Punitive Damages -- Texas Style
  

  It's not as if the only cases I read these days are from the former independent nation of Texas, but the Texas Supreme Court is on a roll in clearing out its backlog of important insurance cases, some involving additional insured coverage (and here), and a new important decision on the insurability of punitive damages.

  One of the great myths in the insurance industry is that punitive damages are not insurable. This is false, particularly considering that the majority of US jurisdictions allow coverage for punitive damages at least in some circumstances. The argument against coverage in premised on the notion that it would undermine the deterrent effect of imposing punitive damages were the defendant able to in turn seek insurance recovery. A century ago the same debate in the same terms was had over whether liability insurance policies were themselves contracts violative of public policy, since it would undermine the deterrent effect of imposing tort liabiltiy were the defendant able to in turn seek insurance recovery. See Mary McNeely, Illegality as a Factor in Liability Insurance, 41 Col. L. Rev. 26 (1941) (an excellent early analysis of some of these questions). As McNeely wrote three score years ago, "Throughout its history the insurance device has been alternatively hailed as a promoter of communal welfare and damned as a generator of evil."

  So too is framed the interesting recapitulation of these familiar polarities from the majority and (main) concurring opinions in Texas. Fairfield Ins. Co. v. Stephens Martin Paving LP (Texas Feb. 15, 2008).

  What I would add is that the data and more rigorous theoretical analyses do not suggest there is a major "moral hazard" problem in liability insurance, see C. Heimer, Reactive Risk and Rational Action: Managing Moral Hazard in Insurance Contracts (1985). And courts should not assume a set of governing facts without evidence (for given the data here the easy assumption that allowing indemnification "encourages" misconduct is surely problematic and not a proper subject for judicial notice). This is not to suggest that there isn't lazy underwriting -- insurers should vet their potential insureds to see if they might be the kind of of folks or companies to engage in misdeeds. But as the Texas majority holds, the principle of freedom of contract should allow whatever coverage is provided by the contract terms -- and if insurers do not want to cover punitive damages in their policies, they can say that.

• Cleaning Up the Mess in Texas: Insurer Funding Payment of Liability Claims When Coverage Is Doubted
  

  In May 2005, the Texas Supreme Court unanimously held that a liability insurer that voluntarily settles a claim against an insured may recover the payment against its own insured if it proves that the claim is uncovered and it reserved its right to seek recoupment. The Texas Supreme Court, while unanimous in result, was badly splintered in rationale.

  Two years ago, the Court granted rehearing. Yesterday, the Court changed course, with a majority ruling that an insurer does not have a unilateral right or an equitable claim to recover a settlement payment. Excess Underwriters v. Frank's Casing (Tex. Feb. 1, 2008). The court reaffirmed its prior decision in Matagorda County, which barred a primary insurer from seeking recoupment of defense cost. Recent case law in other jurisdictions have split on the issue, but the more robust recent opinions (Illinois, Massachusetts, Wyoming) line up with Texas.

• The Covenant to Provide Notice: Materiality or Prejudice Needed To Refuse Payment
  

  Sometimes courts get it right, both analytically and in the result. This was true in the landmark decision of the Texas Supreme Court in PAJ, Inc. v. Hanover Insurance Co. (Texas Jan. 11, 2008). In this case, the Texas court holds that “an insured’s failure to timely notify its insurer of a claim or suit does not defeat coverage if the insurer was not prejudiced by the delay.” While I agree with the holding, what may be more significant is the court’s adoption of the right analytical approach, specifically, considering the notice provision as covenant whose breach discharges the insurance company’s performance only where that breach constitutes a material breach of the contract.

• A Dog in the Fight: Policyholder Interest in Inter-Insurer Disputes
  

  When an insurer pays a policyholder’s claim, the insurer sometimes seeks to off-load that payment “vertically”, that is, by suing other insurance companies that issued lower-layer coverage, or “horizontally”, that is, by suing other insurance companies that issued coverage in other policy periods.

• A Dog in the Fight: Policyholder Interest in Inter-Insurer Disputes
  

  When an insurer pays a policyholder’s claim, the insurer sometimes seeks to off-load that payment “vertically”, that is, by suing other insurance companies that issued lower-layer coverage, or “horizontally”, that is, by suing other insurance companies that issued coverage in other policy periods.

• The "Insurance Hoax" -- Insurers Paying Too Little and Too Late
  

  Bloomberg recently published a hard-hitting piece decrying the property-casualty industry's claims-handling practices. Insurers perceive that the article to punches below the belt, as this response from the Insurance Information Institute shows. The III piece is interesting to me because of its immoderate tone, something at odds with most of the writing that comes from III, which is a great source of financial statistics in particular on the performance of the P-C insurance industry. While the III is certainly right that insurers pay claims every day, the III and the rest of the industry need to recognize the wide-spread perception that at the point of claim insurers adopt an adversarial posture. Experienced, thoughtful observers of the industry have written about this at length (and the linked article is I think the most important thing ever written on the P-C industry), and the point of first-party insurance bad-faith law in part is to counterbalance the power imbalance that insurers hold over their insureds at the time of claim -- at the time their insureds are most in need and dependent on their performance, which explains the emotional oomph that typifies through-the-eyes-of-insureds' reporting on insurers' claims-paying (or claims-denying) practices.

  I agree with the III that the Bloomberg story is too facile, and it is inappropriate to leap from the observation that an insurer paying less than what the policyholder wanted ineluctably means that the insurer is paying less than what the policyholder deserved. I recently suffered a major homeowners' loss when a (crazed) intruder broke into my home and caused huge amounts of damage; our insurer was fantastic in dispatching someone to board up a broken door, arrange for a contractor to do repair work, and reimburse us for other loss (including paying the vendor of our choice on some home electronics). So I know first hand that insurers can ride to the rescue, treat their customers with "good hands," and live up to their advertising slogans. On the other hand, I bring suits against insurers on behalf of clients when I think amounts are owed and unpaid, and I am kept busy by wrongful denials by insurers inflicted against my corporate clients (both large and small). At a time when respected news outlets like Bloomberg (and