Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

To follow up on our post last week recapping a recent Ninth Circuit decision regarding coverage for losses from a social engineering scheme, federal appellate courts continue to examine the coverage available for such losses. As Law360 highlighted, and as we previously reported (here, here, here, and here), appeals are pending in the Second, Sixth, and Eleventh circuits. These cases, some of which involve lower court findings of coverage while others do not, show that coverage for social engineering scams remains hotly contested, which means policyholders must carefully consider such coverage when purchasing insurance. While more and more insurers have introduced endorsements designed to specifically address social engineering schemes, as Hunton attorney Patrick McDermott recently pointed out in a separate Law360 piece, one issue policyholders ought to consider is “whether an endorsement providing coverage for losses resulting from social engineering schemes actually narrows the coverage available for those losses.”