The Northwest Policyholder
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Update: Proposed Amendments to Washington's Insurance Claims Handling Regulations
Shortly after we published Khalid Aziz's post discussing the Washington Office of the Insurance Commissioner’s (“OIC”) proposed changes to the state’s claims-handling regulations, the OIC released an updated version. As promised, our Insurance Recove...
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Proposed Amendments to Washington’s Insurance Claims Handling Regulations
Washington State is already a policyholder-friendly jurisdiction, and the amendments proposed by Patty Kuderer, the newly minted Insurance Commissioner, would only strengthen the protections that Washington law provides to its policyholders. The webs...
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Enterprise Liability Insurer Has Duty to Defend Against a Vendor’s Claim, Even When Presented as an Invoice for “Usage Fees”
In a win for policyholders, a federal court in Washington recently held that an insurer had a duty to defend a technology company against a vendor’s demand for damages it allegedly suffered when hackers accessed software solutions the vendor licensed...
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Washington Supreme Court Refuses to Narrow Coverage Preserved by a Resulting Loss Clause
The Washington Supreme Court’s March 14, 2024 decision in Gardens Condominium v. Farmers Insurance Exchange1 held that an all-risk policy’s resulting loss clause preserves coverage for non-excluded losses that are the natural consequences of an excluded peril. The Court underscored that its holdings in two prior resulting loss decisions, Vision One2 and Sprague3, do not require an “independent” or intervening cause of loss for coverage to exist, holding that interpreting the policy language otherwise would “negate the effect of the resulting loss clause.”
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Livin’ on a Prayer (for Noneconomic Damages in a Coverage Dispute)
Tommy, Bon Jovi fans know, is in trouble. From the opening lines of the song, “Livin’ on a Prayer,” we learn that things are so bad that Tommy’s got his six-string in hock.
The song implies that Tommy is in straits because the union’s been on strike...
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Washington Agreements Attempting to “Buy Back” Insurance Policies after Loss Invalidated
Parties facing responsibility for long-tail events such as environmental contamination or asbestos exposure can face staggering joint-and-several liabilities. Often, old occurrence-based liability policies offer the only potential source of insurance...
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