Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

The Fourth Circuit in APAC-Atlantic, Inc. v. Owners Insurance Co., No. 24-1969, 2026 WL 458402 (4th Cir. Feb. 18, 2026) recently endorsed broad coverage for additional insureds, interpreting “arising out of” broadly under North Carolina law to extend coverage to a repaving company under its subcontractor’s liability insurance policy. The court held that an additional insured’s liability “arising out of” a named insured’s work in an additional-insured endorsement means liability “relating to” or “causally connected to” the named insured’s operations, rather than liability defined more narrowly as “caused by” or “the fault of” the named insured.

On August 15, we wrote a blog post (which can be accessed here) about how the Eleventh Circuit certified to the Florida Supreme Court the issue of whether Florida’s pre-suit process in contractor cases, under Chapter 558 of the Florida Statutes, constitutes a “suit” under CGL policy language, which would trigger the insurer’s duty to defend. On October 25, various construction trade organizations and a nonprofit policyholder advocacy group, United Policyholders, urged the Florida Supreme Court to rule in favor of Altman Contractor Inc.’s (“Altman”) interpretation that a construction defect notice issued under Chapter 558 constitutes a “suit” under CGL policies because such a reading would promote insureds and insurers to resolve disputes with the underlying plaintiff out of court and because CGL policies should be construed broadly to provide coverage for pre-litigation proceedings.

On August 2^nd, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals certified to the Florida Supreme Court the issue of whether the notice and repair process of Chapter 558, Florida Statutes constitutes a "suit" under widely used CGL policy language, thus triggering the insurer's duty to defend. Altman Contractors, Inc. v. Crum & Forster Speciality Ins. Co., No. 15-12816 (11th Cir. Aug. 2, 2016).