Recently, our colleagues Tamara Bruno, Colin Kemp, Peter Gillon, Vince Morgan and Joseph Jean published an alert titled Hurricane Matthew Requires Immediate Action to Maximize Insurance Recovery to help you weather any storm. Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture – A MH-60 helicopter from the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Aviation Training Center…
Check out my latest blog for Pillsbury’s Policyholder Pulse titled A Subcontractor’s Defective Work Is an Occurrence: Weedo Wobbles … and Falls Down. It discusses a recent ruling in New Jersey, Cypress Point Condominium Assoc., Inc. v. Adria Towers, L.L.C., on the issue of whether damage caused by a subcontractor’s faulty workmanship constitutes…
Pillsbury’s Policyholder Pulse Law blog recently posted an interesting blog, Use Contractor’s Pollution Liability Insurance to Clean Up Potential Gaps in Your CGL Coverage by Ashley E. Cowgill, on the importance of contractors having the right liability coverage in place in the event that a flash flood or other natural disaster causes damage…
According to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Ash Grove Cement Co. v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., an unpublished opinion applying Oregon law, an insurer’s duty to defend begins with a “104(e) letter” from the EPA and continues for the duration of the regulatory process. In A “Suit” by…
In New York High Court Gives the Bronx Cheer to Insurers’ Pro Rata Allocation and Exhaustion Arguments, Pillsbury attorney Benjamin D. Tievsky discusses New York State Court of Appeals’ decision in In re Viking Pump, Inc. The Court of Appeals accepted two certified questions from the Delaware Supreme Court. As noted…
UPDATE: When Attorneys General Attack II In When Attorneys General Attack, Pillsbury attorneys Sheila McCafferty Harvey, Joseph Jean, Carolina Fornos and Benjamin Tievsky discuss the New York State Office of the Attorney General’s and other jurisdictions’ power to aggressively scrutinize energy companies’ public statements on the subject of climate change. In…
In A Double Standard in Construction Defect Coverage Cases?, I discuss the recent decision of Allied Property & Casualty Insurance Co. v. Metro North Condominium Associates. This decision highlights why only a minority of courts still hold to the fiction that construction defects cannot give rise to an “occurrence” covered…
In his November op-ed, C. Andrew Gibson states that bonds do not have a deductible as compared to a subcontractor default insurance (SDI) policy that does carry a deductible. The statement is literally correct. A bond does not have a “written” deductible when a default takes place. However, frustration develops when…
In Fabozzi v. Lexington Insurance Company, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has reaffirmed that ambiguities in an insurance policy must be construed against the insurer. The Fabozzis were renovating their home when they learned that its interior walls were so rotted that the entire house…
Subcontractor default insurance (SDI) was created more than twenty years ago. Despite its relatively recent vintage, SDI is now offered by multiple insurers and is quickly replacing traditional subcontractor payment and performance bonds as a go-to option on large-scale construction projects. SDI has many benefits that surety bonds don’t. We’ll be…