Category: Blog

The dry cleaner had gone to the attic in search of his old business package policies. He explained that he had no idea before visiting an attorney that these old expired insurance policies could be of any use to him. Since they were package policies, they contained more than one line of insurance. Parts of the policy provided coverage against damage to his building, against break-ins, storm damage and even workers compensation coverage. As far as he knew, all of this coverage had long ago expired. Why would he still have copies of these old policies? There was no reason, he thought, that he would have kept them. They would have to be in a box or two that he had neglected to put in the dumpster. Continue reading “How Insurance Archeology Can Assist Dry Cleaners When Environmental Contamination Claims Threaten Their Business”

Insurance archeology may be the science of recreating past insurance programs by assembling various types of evidence of insurance contracts, but the focus and methods used by different insurance archeologists vary. Unlike other disciplines for which standards and methods have been agreed upon by associations organized by practitioners, insurance archeology has yet to become standardized. The result is that various law firms, risk management firms and consultants provide different sorts of services under the same heading. All practitioners have the same purpose: the location and retrieval of evidence of historical insurance policies. Where they deviate is in (1) where they go to find old insurance records and (2) what they do once they go there to retrieve the policy evidence. Continue reading “Insurance Archeology is More than Insurance Audits”

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Drycleaners News June 2009 Issue

How many drycleaners do you know who own their business and building? Some drycleaners may have thought they had an asset, only to find out that the building is contaminated and cleaning it up will cost a lot of money.

Many drycleaners have always followed the law and managed a clean and respectable business, but they later find out that the rules they had followed for years have become more stringent. Other drycleaners would like to eventually pass the business on to their children but are afraid of handing them an environmental liability. Continue reading “Locate And Keep Old Insurance Policies Safe to Protect Assets”

The New Jersey Appellate Division ruled recently in Myron Corp. v. Atlantic Mutual Ins. Corp that N.J. Rule of General Application 4:42-9(a)(6) provides for the award of counsel fees even if the court action takes place in a state outside of New Jersey. In an apparent effort to discourage forum shopping, the Appellate court’s ruling was made in a case where a policyholder sought to recover attorney’s fees and court costs from defending against its insurance company’s two out-of-state declaratory judgment actions. Continue reading “NJ Court Awards Policyholder Counsel Fees for Dec Action Brought Elsewhere”

Those west coast policyholders whose historical primary insurance carriers have since become insolvent may wish to take notice of a recent Ninth Circuit U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision styled California Ins. Co. v. Stimson Lumber Co., 2009 WL 1035238 (9th Cir. (Oregon) April 16, 2009). In Stimson, the appellate court was called on to reconsider district court rulings concerning how defense costs would be allocated in a situation where the policyholder’s primary insurer had become insolvent, but an umbrella policy had been purchased to overlay the risk for that particular policy period. Continue reading “Horizontal Allocation is Ninth Circuit Choice in Insolvent Gap Case; But Insured Not Required to Pay Share of Costs”

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After a couple decades as an insurance archeologist, I find that my business clients too often take their commercial general liability insurance policies at face value. The word has been out for some time that old business insurance policies are valuable, but as to their actual value, it is best not to trust your own eyes. Continue reading “Pollution Exclusions: Some Reasons Not to Believe Your Own Eyes”

The Supreme Court of Indiana ruled in a unanimous decision on April 28, 2009 that an insurer had no duty to defend where its policyholder did not comply with the policy’s notice provision. Where the notice provision had required the insured to “Tell us or our agent what happened as soon as possible,” and yet the insured had waited three and a half years to notice its insurer of environmental damage claims against it, the court found that no duty to defend under the policy existed. Continue reading “Indiana Supreme Court rules Late Notice Can Be Fatal”

It was the late 1980s and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“USEPA”) was conducting Potentially Responsible Party (“PRP”) Searches at landfills throughout the United States. The Superfund had been recently created and there was money to fund this investigative effort so that large corporate “polluters” could be identified and advised of their liability for the property damage their release of pollutants had caused.  Springing up alongside the USEPA’s efforts were the efforts of defense attorneys to enter the administrative law arena to defend their clients against allegations that they either generated or transported pollutants that were released to a waste site or that they owned or operated a site at which pollutants had been released. Continue reading “Small Is A Better Fit: The New Age of Insurance Archeology”

Doing insurance archeology for fifteen years, I have noticed that a good percentage of our clients don’t understand why the insurance companies just won’t reveal their policy histories when asked. I usually remark that if the insurers just volunteered insurance information, guys like me would not have jobs. However, I also am usually asked two related questoins: (1) “Does the insurance company have a duty to disclose coverage?” and (2) “Since insurers keep old policy files, why don’t they voluntarily do policy searches for their insureds?” Continue reading ““It’s my Policy and I want it Now””

The business owner was defending against claims by the state environmental authorities that his operations contaminated the groundwater beneath his former plant site with chlorinated solvents over a period of twenty years in business. His attorney explained that the business owner would have to comply with the states requirements and hire an environmental engineer to investigate and possibly remediate the environmental property damage.  He estimated the cost of these services in his state at approximately $300,000. The attorney suggested to him that his old business insurance policies might provide coverage for the damages and even apply to the attorney’s fees. Continue reading “It Doesn’t Always Take a Policy to Prove Coverage”