Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

The United States Supreme Court recently held in Great Lakes Ins. SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co., LLC, that choice-of-law provisions in maritime contracts, including maritime insurance policies, are presumptively enforceable under federal maritime law. In Great Lakes, a policyholder asserted counterclaims against its insurer under the state law of Pennsylvania, where the insurer had filed a federal-court action seeking a declaration of no coverage, even though the choice-of-law provision in the applicable maritime insurance policy designated New York law. The policyholder argued that Pennsylvania had the greatest interest in the dispute, and that enforcing the New York choice-of-law provision in the policy would contravene Pennsylvania’s fundamental public policy. The district court dismissed the policyholder’s counterclaims, but the Third Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, and we explained here that the Court’s decision could have significant ramifications for insurance-coverage disputes both under maritime insurance policies and more generally if the Court adopted broad rules regarding the enforcement of choice-of-law provisions.  

The Hawaii Supreme Court emphatically rejected insurer efforts to seek reimbursement of defense costs absent a provision in the policy providing for such reimbursement in St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Company v. Bodell Construction Company, No. SCCQ-22-0000658, 2023 WL 7517083, (Haw. Nov. 14, 2023). The state high court’s well-reasoned decision rests on bedrock law regarding insurance policy construction and application, follows the nationwide trend of courts compelling insurers to satisfy their contractual obligations in full, and should carry great weight as other jurisdictions continue to debate the same issue.

On Monday, March 6, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear an insurance coverage dispute, Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co., LLC.  Insurance cases are few and far between in the high court, so both policyholders and their insurers will be watching the Great Lakes case with great interest.  Notably, while the case involves the specialized area of maritime law, how the Supreme Court chooses to address the choice-of-law issue it presents could have much broader implications.

The Fourth Circuit recently affirmed insurance coverage for a South Carolina policyholder based on the “axiomatic principle” that an insurer which fails to fully and fairly articulate its potential coverage defenses in a reservation of rights letter loses the right to contest coverage on those grounds. Stoneledge at Lake Keowee Owner’s Assoc. v. Cincinnati Ins. Co., No. 19-2009, 2022 WL 17592121 (4th Cir. 2022) (quoting Harleysville Group Insurance v. Heritage Communities, Inc., 803 S.E.2d 288 (S.C. 2017)). More particularly, in Stoneledge, the Fourth Circuit affirmed per curiam a South Carolina District Court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of a homeowners association that had successfully sued its general contractors for construction defects and was seeking to recover the damages owed from the contractors’ insurers. The Fourth Circuit agreed that the insurers’ vague reservation of rights letters failed to reserve the defenses on which the insurers purported to deny coverage.

While Harvard prepares to defend its admissions policies to the Supreme Court, one of its insurers continues to argue that a technicality prevents Harvard from recovering $15 million to defray its defense costs under its insurance policies.

Last month, we discussed an insurance coverage dispute between Harvard College and Zurich American Insurance Company. The dispute arises from Zurich’s refusal to cover a 2014 lawsuit that an affirmative-action group filed against Harvard, alleging that the university’s admissions policies violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Since the affirmative action suit was filed, Harvard has been defending its admissions policies through the trial and appellate court systems, an effort that has cost the university more than $25 million.

On September 21, 2021 and October 15, 2021, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued reminders of the sanctions risks for facilitating ransom payments to designated malicious cyber actors.  As discussed in our prior blogpost on OFAC's October 1, 2020 advisory, OFAC has made clear that it is increasingly willing to bring enforcement actions against entities, including cyber insurers, that facilitate payments to sanctioned threat actors on behalf of corporate victims.

This guidance should serve as a reminder to policyholders that ransomware and other cyber incidents trigger stringent regulatory and reporting requirements and that policyholders should consider engaging experienced advisors to develop a cohesive response strategy when cyber incidents occur.  OFAC’s guidance also should remind policyholders to carefully scrutinize cyber insurance coverages (and others) to ensure they provide the broadest possible coverage for cyber risks while still following OFAC guidance.