Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

While the holiday season brings joy to many, it can be a stressful time for businesses. Cyberattacks often spike during weekends and holidays when businesses are less vigilant and slower to detect unusual activity. This reduced oversight creates an opportunity for attackers to exploit weaknesses and cause significant disruption. A recent article in Tech Times noted that ransomware groups launch over 50% of their attacks during weekends and take advantage of December’s increased operational shortages.

In a recent opinion, the 8th Circuit rejected an insurer’s attempt to expand insurer victories in a COVID-19 context to other more traditional claims of property damage. Reaffirming long standing principles, the court held soot and water damage associated with a fire constituted “direct physical loss or damage” under a commercial property insurance policy.

After any merger or acquisition, disputes can arise regarding the accuracy of representations and warranties made by the seller to the buyer. In most transactions today, the buyer obtains representation and warranty insurance to cover the buyer for losses resulting from the seller’s breach of a representation or warranty. When an R&W policy provides coverage, a seller may attempt to offset its obligations to the buyer by amounts paid by the R&W insurer. Likewise, the R&W insurer may attempt offset against the damages paid by the seller to the buyer. But other legal and equitable ...

Ruling on cross motions for summary judgment, a federal court in New York held that AIG Specialty Insurance Company (AIG) must cover the settlement of an underlying action against its insured, SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (SS&C), who was duped by e-mail scammers to issue millions in wire transfers.  The court rejected AIG’s assertion that the loss resulted from SS&C’s exercise of authority or discretionary control of client funds where SS&C only had limited administrative authority and further held that, even if SS&C had exercised the requisite authority, the exclusion was ambiguous.  A copy of the court’s decision can be found here.