The Northwest Policyholder
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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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Washington Court of Appeals Makes It Easier for Policyholders to Tap Excess Coverage
A recent Washington Court of Appeals decision held that “horizontal” exhaustion of primary liability policies was unnecessary to trigger coverage by excess policies. This will make it easier for policyholders to tap excess liability insurance coverag...
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Policyholders Beware: Two CGL Endorsements Seek to Limit Your Liability Coverage (Part 2)
Aug 17, 2021
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This is Part 2 in our series analyzing newer endorsements to commercial general liability, aka “CGL,” policies, both of which may create serious roadblocks to coverage for Washington policyholders. In this post, we analyze a “defense costs” endorseme...
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Policyholders Beware: Two CGL Endorsements May Limit Your Liability Coverage (Part 1)
Jul 22, 2021
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Insurers have recently added novel endorsements to commercial general liability, or CGL, policies, both of which may impact a policyholder’s coverage. We have analyzed two that may create serious roadblocks to coverage for Washington policyholders: t...
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