The Northwest Policyholder
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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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When the Application is the Risk (of Rescission): Don’t Let Your Insurance Application Shred Your Policy
Surprised insurers are unhappy insurers. And unhappy insurers are more likely to resist paying claims. As are insurers who fail to heed their good faith and other obligations to their policyholders.
So if you seek coverage for a loss arising from cir...
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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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The Initial Impact of Moody? More Confusion.
Until recently, Oregon courts did not allow policyholders to bring claims against their insurers under Oregon’s Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act and only allowed tort-based “bad faith” claims in narrow circumstances. This left Oregon policyhold...
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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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This Is [Not] How We Do It: Insurer Gets Schooled on the Consequences of a Bad Faith Refusal to Defend
An insurer gets schooled on the consequences of violating its duty to defend in bad faith. Washington State goes to great lengths to protect policyholders from insurance company misconduct and overreach. This is especially true when it comes to an insurer’s duty to defend its policyholder against third-party claims.
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