Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

In a recent article appearing in Florida’s Daily Business Review (available here), Hunton Insurance Recovery Practice team head, Walter Andrews, explains why phishing and whaling scams should be covered by insurance.  In the article, Andrews notes that recent appellate decisions support policyholders’ reasonable expectations of coverage and reject insurers’ contentions that social engineering losses do not result directly from the use of computers.  Andrews goes on to explain that should a company find itself a victim of a phishing or whaling attack, it should carefully ...

A New York district court has held that an insurer must provide coverage under three excess insurance policies issued in 1970 for defense and cleanup costs incurred by Olin Corporation in remediating environmental contamination at seven sites in Connecticut, Washington, Maryland, Illinois, New York, and Washington. Seven of the remaining sites at issue presented questions of fact for trial, with only one site being dismissed due to lack of coverage.

Whether an insurance bad faith claim, joined by amendment to an underlying insurance coverage action, may be removed more than a year after the original action was begun has divided federal judges in the state of Florida but has not yet been considered by the Eleventh Circuit. Now, a new opinion out of the Middle District of Florida (Jacksonville Division) has added to the debate.

On Monday, a Nevada federal court held that U.S. Fire Insurance Co. (“U.S. Fire”) need not cover its insured, CP Food and Beverage, Inc. (“CP”), a strip club, under its commercial crime policy for a scheme perpetrated by its own employees that resulted in the theft of money from CP customers. A copy of the decision can be found here.

The California Department of Insurance recently approved three new insurance carriers to provide coverage for the emerging cannabis industry. Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced last week that The North River Insurance Company, United States Fire Insurance Company, and White Pine Insurance Company will all begin offering surety bonds for cannabis businesses by the end of the month.

In a recent post, we discussed the Sixth Circuit’s holding in American Tooling Center, Inc. v. Travelers Casualty and Surety Co. of America, No. 17-2014, 2018 WL 3404708 (6th Cir. July 13, 2018), where the Sixth Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment for the insurer, finding coverage under its policy for a fraudulent scheme that resulted in a $834,000.00 loss. The insurer, Travelers, has now asked the Court to reconsider its decision.

The Sixth Circuit, in American Tooling Center, Inc. v. Travelers Casualty and Surety Co. of America, No. 17-2014, 2018 WL 3404708 (6th Cir. July 13, 2018), reversed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the insurer in a dispute over coverage for a social engineering scheme. The policyholder, American Tooling, lost $800,000 after a fraudster’s email tricked an American Tooling employee into wiring that amount to the fraudster.

In a July 9, 2018 article appearing in Insurance Law360, Hunton Andrews Kurth insurance recovery practice head, Walter J. Andrews, explains why the Second Circuit’s decision in Medidata Solutions Inc. v. Federal Insurance Co., No. 17-2492 (2^nd Cir. July 6, 2018), affirming coverage for a $4.8 million loss caused by a “phishing” e-mail attack, is a common sense application of the plain language of Medidata’s computer fraud coverage provision.  As Andrews explained, “[c]learly, hijacking — or spoofing — email addresses constitutes an attack on a company's computer system for which a reasonable policyholder should expect coverage. A computer is a computer is a computer. Everyone knows that — except for insurance companies.”

On July 6, 2018, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s summary judgment award in favor of Medidata Solutions, Inc., finding that Medidata’s $4.8 million loss suffered after Medidata was tricked into wiring funds to a fraudulent overseas account, triggered coverage under a commercial crime policy’s computer fraud provision. The decision in Medidata Solutions, Inc. v. Federal Ins. Co., 17-cv-2492 (2d Cir., July 6, 2018), confirms a ruling by District Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr., in which the district court found that a fraudsters manipulation of Medidata’s computer systems constitutes a fraudulent entry of data into the computer system, since the spoofing code was introduced into the email system.

A Connecticut court recently denied a motion to compel appraisal of a claim for coverage of a commercial property damage claim, holding that, where the insurance policy at issue provides for appraisal of disputes related to the value or quantum or a loss suffered—not the rights and liabilities of the parties under the policy—appraisal is premature. The decision relied on law that equates insurance appraisal to arbitration and follows a number of decisions holding that parties cannot expand the scope of appraisal clauses to resolve questions of coverage or liability where, as in this case, those issues are not supported by the applicable policy language.