Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

The extent of coverage is often a function of how many occurrences (or accidents) are involved in a claim. For example, lawsuits based on product liability claims may involve a flawed manufacturing process constituting a single occurrence, or the sale of each individual product may result in hundreds of occurrences. A recent ruling involved the number of occurrences debate and resulted in the insured establishing coverage for up to $55 million instead of just $5 million in limits. 

A California appeals court recently reversed a trial court’s determination that a D&O insurer had no duty to reimburse legal fees incurred by a company’s former CFO in defending against an SEC civil enforcement action, shareholder derivative claims, and counterclaims by the company asserting that the CFO breached his indemnification agreement. In doing so, the appeals court rejected the insurer’s argument that the defense costs the company advanced to the CFO were “restitutionary” damages excluded from the D&O policy’s definition of loss.

The court explained that its ruling favoring broad executive protection was consistent with the generally understood purpose of D&O liability insurance—to provide protection for individuals whose business decisions, made in their capacity as the management of a corporation, subject them to the risk of personal liability for losses that the corporation or its shareholders may incur.

Insurance can mitigate cross-border risks arising out of geo-political and government-related disruptions (such as war, corruption or expropriation), social unrest and cyber vulnerabilities. Different insurance products respond to these risks in different ways. For example, contingent business interruption coverage responds to mitigate lost profits resulting from an interruption of business caused by physical damage to a supplier’s property, while cyber insurance protects against the costs of digital threats, such as ransomware attacks, phishing or hacking. In a recent Supply & Demand Chain Executive article, counsel Jorge R. Aviles and associate Jae Lynn Huckaba analyze how the industry can utilize these different insurance products in unison and build a comprehensive insurance portfolio to maximize coverage and minimize losses from the most common cross-border risks.

The Ninth Circuit has affirmed victory for New York Marine and General Insurance Co. in its legal battle with Amber Heard over the cost of defending defamation claims brought against the actress by ex-husband, Johnny Depp. New York Marine and Gen. Ins. Co. v. Heard, No. 23-3399 (9th Cir. Nov. 25, 2024). The decision, premised on Virginia law, rather than the policyholder’s favored California law, underscores the potential for choice of law to have case-dispositive implications.