Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

Syed Ahmad, a partner in the Hunton & Williams LLP insurance recovery practice, was quoted in an article by Law360 concerning the Fourth Circuit’s April 11, 2016 decision in Travelers Indemnity Company v. Portal Healthcare Solutions, No. 14-1944. In the decision, a panel of the Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision of a Virginia district court, which held in August 2014 that Travelers must defend Portal Healthcare Solutions LLC against a proposed class action alleging that the policyholder’s failure to secure its server made medical records accessible by unauthorized users ...

On April 11, 2016, the Fourth Circuit affirmed a trial court’s decision that Travelers must defend a class action against its policyholder, Portal Healthcare Solutions, arising out of Portal’s alleged failure to safeguard confidential medical records. In the class action, the plaintiffs contended that Portal had allowed their private medical records to be accessed on the internet for more than four months by a simple Google search of a patient’s name. Portal sought coverage under provisions in two Travelers policies that provided coverage for alleged injury arising from “electronic publication of material” that “gives unreasonable publicity to a person’s private life” or that “discloses information about a person’s private life.”