Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

In ExxonMobil Corp. v. Natl. Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, PA, the Texas Supreme Court held that an insurance policy did not incorporate the payout limits of an underlying service agreement and thus the insured was entitled to the higher limits under the insurance policy. 2023 WL 2939596, at *1 (Tex. Apr. 14, 2023).

Congratulations to Alice Weeks, an associate on Hunton Andrews Kurth’s insurance coverage team, for being selected to the Miami Dade Bar’s Circle of Excellence for Insurance Litigation.   

The Circle of Excellence award is awarded to peer-selected attorneys in their area of practice. Alice was selected from among many highly qualified nominees and was recognized at the Miami Dade Bar’s Judicial Reception. Alice is a past board member of the Miami Dade Bar YLS, as well as past-editor of the Miami Dade Bar’s newsletter, the Bulletin. Alice’s Circle of Excellence selection ...

As discussed in a recent client alert, on March 24, 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill (HB) 837 into law, making it more difficult and costly for insurance policyholders of all sizes to sue insurers for bad faith by eliminating fee-shifting for most policyholders and requiring something “more than” negligence for bad faith claims.

The RISKWORLD 2023 Annual Conference in Atlanta is just around the corner! Visit members of the Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP Insurance Coverage team at Booth 2040 to learn more about how our insurance recovery team helps clients obtain insurance recoveries and advise on the negotiation and procurement of policies and the presentation of claims.

In addition, partners Andrea DeField and Michael Levine, special counsel Lara Cassidy and counsel Kevin Small will be presenting on current and emerging insurance topics during the conference. Please see below for information about each session.

We hope to see you in Atlanta!

On March 20, 2023, the Southern District of New York denied a policyholder’s claim for coverage and granted the insurer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in Pine Management, Inc. v. Colony Insurance Company. The parties disputed whether a real estate liability insurance policy provided defense and indemnification for Pine Management, Inc. in an underlying lawsuit brought by numerous companies that Pine managed. A simple question proved pivotal in the outcome: whether Pine had timely sought coverage for its claim.

Blockchain technology has been touted as inherently reliable for years. More recently, collectors of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have explored expanded uses for that novel technology. Some courts have bought in and, in doing so, recently authorized a use that perhaps no one had imagined when NFTs first entered the mainstream: service of process.

Congratulations to Adriana Perez on her selection to the National Association of Women Lawyers’ (NAWL) 2023 Rising List. Adriana is a member of Hunton Andrews Kurth’s national Insurance Recovery practice and is based in the Firm’s Miami, Florida office.

The Eighth Circuit has affirmed that an AIG affiliate must cover the full $32 million loss stemming from an employee’s embezzlement scheme. The court found that not only was National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh (“National Union”) liable for the $3 million the employee actually stole, but that the plain language of the commercial crime policy also required coverage for the $29 million in excess costs her scheme caused Cargill to endure.

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.

A New York Federal judge recently ordered a directors and officers liability insurer to pay $4.5 million that an investment firm had spent defending an arbitration proceeding brought by a former executive. The court found that allegations of constructive termination and related retaliation triggered an exception to the D&O policy’s insured-versus-insured exclusion for employment-related wrongful acts, rejecting the insurer’s argument that, notwithstanding the former executive’s count for constructive termination, his status as an “Insured Person” triggered the exclusion where the majority of counts in the arbitration related to alleged breaches of the firm’s operating agreement.