Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

When obtaining insurance coverage, businesses must be wary of policy exclusions that are so broad that they defeat the policy’s primary purpose and render coverage illusory. In Travelers Property Casualty Company of America v. H.E. Sutton Forwarding Co., LLC, No. 2:21-CV-719-JES-KCD, 2023 WL 5486746 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 24, 2023), the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida considered this very issue in deciding when a policy exclusion goes too far.

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 IRS recently filed a petition to enforce summonses issued to investigate tax liability stemming from a business’s involvement in a captive insurance transaction. While captives can have many advantages—ranging from increased control, reduced costs, and favorable tax benefits—the IRS petition underscores the importance of structuring and implementing captives in accordance with all applicable laws.

In another win for policyholders, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on September 24, 2020 denied Sentinel Insurance Company’s motion to dismiss the policyholder doctor office’s claim for COVID-19 related business interruption coverage.  Urogynecology Specialist of Florida LLC v. Sentinel  Insurance Company Ltd., Case No.: 6:20-cv-1174-Orl-22EJK (M.D. Fla. Sept. 25, 2020). The court engaged in a true analysis of the policy’s virus exclusion language, finding that the insurer had not met its burden of showing that its proposed reading of the exclusionary language is the only reasonable interpretation.

A Florida district court recently held that an insurer wrongfully refused to defend a Miami-based strip club in a lawsuit filed by 17 models claiming that the club used their images to promote its business without their authorization. The insurer was required to defend the club for allegations of defamation under the policy’s personal and advertising coverage even though 16 of the 17 plaintiffs’ claims alleged conduct outside the covered policy period and no plaintiffs brought a cause of action for “defamation.” The decision highlights the broad duty to defend, in Florida and elsewhere, that policyholders should emphasize when pursuing coverage.

On August 6, 2019, Hunton Andrews Kurth insurance lawyers Walter J. Andrews and Daniel Hentschel discussed the effect of eroding insurance policies in an article appearing in Florida’s Daily Business Review. The full article is available here. In the article, the authors discuss the potential risks associated with the use of eroding insurance policies and the obligations that the use of such policies imposes upon insurance companies based on their control over the policyholder’s liability defense ...

The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida recently granted summary judgment in favor of developer, KB Homes, ruling that Southern Owners Insurance Co. must defend KB Homes under various Commercial General Liability policies.

Hunton insurance lawyers Michael Levine, Syed Ahmad and Katherine Miller discuss how Hurricanes Harvey and Irma highlight the need for contingent business interruption insurance and why companies with this coverage should be considering how to obtain its benefit for income losses resulting from the recent storms. The article was published this morning in Risk Management.

For more information, please visit our Hurricane Insurance Recovery and Advisory center.

Many communities are breathing a sigh of relief as winter weather kills off a good portion of the Zika-carrying mosquito population – at least in some parts of the US, and at least until next spring.  But dwindling mosquito populations have not diminished business concerns about Zika-related losses.  Since the health effects of Zika may not be apparent until months after birth, businesses in mosquito-popular locales should assess their option to cover the losses caused by Zika, or the mere threat of Zika.  Read my colleagues Walter Andrews, Michael Levine, Andrea DeField’s ...

On Thursday, Florida’s highest court held that prior to litigating a first-party bad faith action arising from an uninsured/underinsured motorist (“UM”) case, an insured is entitled to a jury determination of liability and the full extent of potentially recoverable damages, even if in excess of policy limits.  Fridman v. Safeco Ins. Co. of Illinois, No. SC13-1607 (Fla. Feb. 25, 2016).  And, such a determination is binding on the insurer in the subsequent bad faith action so long as the parties had an opportunity for appellate review of any trial errors.

The ruling is premised on ...

Prior blog posts discuss new laws imposing, among other things, insurance-related requirements on ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft (also known as transportation network companies or TNCs) and their drivers. While many states have passed such laws, the Florida legislature is now dealing with competing proposals for regulating TNCs. On Tuesday, a Florida Senate committee unanimously approved a bill to regulate TNCs. A different bill is making its way through the Florida House. Both bills include insurance requirements but the devil is in the details.