Property
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June 05, 2025
New SC Law Gives Shot Of Hope For Liquor Liability Stability
A new law overhauling South Carolina's joint and several liability statutes, which left bars and restaurants potentially on the hook for the full amount of a verdict in alcohol-related lawsuits, has experts cautiously optimistic that the change will make insurance more affordable for these venues.
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June 05, 2025
Norton Rose Adds Corporate Pro To Growing Chicago Office
Norton Rose Fulbright announced the growth of its Chicago office Thursday with the addition of a "highly regarded corporate lawyer," who will serve as a partner in the firm's business practice group and as a member of its transactional and regulatory insurance team.
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June 05, 2025
Former NFL Great Says Travelers Won't Cover Water Claim
Former New England Patriots linebacker Andre Tippett and his wife are suing a Travelers subsidiary over its denial of coverage for nearly $400,000 worth of water damage to their Massachusetts home, according to a complaint filed on Thursday in state court.
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June 05, 2025
Mo. Gov. Adds Property Tax Cap To Special Session Agenda
Missouri's governor announced additional goals for a special session that began this week, including asking lawmakers to put an annual cap on residential property value increases.
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June 05, 2025
Fed Survey Highlights Disaster Risks To Uninsured Across US
A recent survey from the Federal Reserve Board showing that 7% of U.S. homeowners are going without property insurance underscores a key part of a national housing affordability crisis that is leaving more households with little protection from disasters.
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June 05, 2025
Insurance Litigation Week In Review
The Sixth Circuit said a coverage dispute over PFAS litigation shouldn't have been sent back to state court, the Tenth Circuit found that an insurer did not unreasonably deny a hail damage claim and a Florida federal court freed an insurer from paying an $8.5 million deal over construction defects. Here, Law360 takes a look at the past week's top insurance news.
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June 03, 2025
Lumber Co. Says Carrier Failed To Procure Proper Coverage
A lumber company and its insurance broker told a Nebraska federal court that the company's property insurance policy should be reformed to include $500,000 in business interruption coverage following a fire loss, alleging the insurer failed to do so despite the broker's request during the company's policy renewal.
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June 03, 2025
Electrical Parts Co. Owes $1M For Fire Loss, Insurer Says
A manufacturer of electrical cables is responsible for over $1 million in damages for a fire at a Philadelphia-based discount department store, an insurer told a Pennsylvania federal court, saying the blaze was caused by the manufacturer's defective armored cabling.
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June 03, 2025
The Law360 400: A Look At The Top 100 Firms
A rebound in client work sent the nation’s largest law firms into growth mode last year, driving a wave of hiring, mergers and strategic moves that reshaped the top tier of the Law360 400. Here's a preview of the 100 firms with the largest U.S. attorney headcounts.
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June 02, 2025
Seattle Owner Questions Insurer's $8.5M Water Damage Denial
A Seattle building owner urged a Washington federal court to grant it a partial early win in a coverage dispute over $8.5 million in water damage, telling the court that under state law, none of the four exclusions its insurer cited when denying coverage are applicable to the water intrusion loss.
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June 02, 2025
Insurance Experts Examine AI's Challenges For Underwriting
Academics, attorneys and insurance industry officials took a look at the myriad ways artificial intelligence could affect the "insurance value chain," as one conference panelist put it, across claims, litigation and underwriting, including the coverage of AI-related occurrences themselves.
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May 30, 2025
Townhome Org. Seeks Confirmation Of Storm Damage Award
A townhome association's insurer has no legal basis to withhold payments under a $2.7 million appraisal award for costs connected to a 2022 storm, the association told a Minnesota federal court Friday in a bid for an early win in its suit.
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May 30, 2025
Ace Says Ga. Insureds Wrongly Added Atty To Coverage Fight
Ace Property and Casualty Insurance Co. has launched a sanctions bid in Georgia federal court against two policyholders and their counsel in a coverage suit, alleging they abused the judicial process by adding outside counsel as a defendant just to defeat diversity jurisdiction and remand the case to state court.
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May 29, 2025
Q&A: What's The Deal With Insurance-Linked Securities?
The use of insurance-linked securities has boomed in recent years, helping increase overall global reinsurance capacity and allowing investors to participate in reinsurance transactions without having to become licensed reinsurers themselves. Here, Law360 talks to Nicholas Berry, a London-based partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, on the mechanics of ILS transactions and why he thinks this alternative asset type is here to stay.
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May 29, 2025
FDA Changes May Put CGL Policies In Play, Experts Say
Changing regulations at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under the Trump administration may make food contamination risks a higher concern for certain policyholders, and insureds should closely review their commercial general liability and product recall policies for potential coverage, experts say.
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May 29, 2025
No Coverage For Clothing Chain's COVID-19 Losses
A national clothing retailer can't get coverage for its pandemic-related losses, a Tennessee federal court ruled, permanently tossing the case and saying its Hartford policy plainly excluded the losses regardless of whether Tennessee law or Pennsylvania law — the original jurisdiction of the case — applied.
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May 29, 2025
More Severe Hurricanes Invite Coverage Review, Expert Says
Climate change is driving up the duration, scope and intensity of hurricanes across the United States and policyholders must adjust to the shifting risks through a proactive approach to their insurance policies, according to an environmental and insurance expert in McCarter & English's insurance recovery group.
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May 29, 2025
Insurance Litigation Week In Review
Towers Watson's insurers don't have to cover shareholder litigation, the Fifth Circuit said its hands were tied concerning fire damage arbitration, North Carolina's highest court allowed a homeowner who didn't read his policy to continue his agency negligence case and a Georgia couple say two personal injury firms misled them. Here, Law360 takes a look at the past week's top insurance news.
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May 28, 2025
Mo. Gov. Seeks Tax Break For Home Insurance Deductibles
Missouri's governor called a special session for state lawmakers to pass legislation allowing a tax deduction for insurance policy deductibles incurred when homes are damaged by severe weather.
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May 28, 2025
Insurance Atty Talks FEMA Cuts As Storm, Fire Seasons Near
As hurricane and wildfire seasons approach, Anthony Lopez, founder of the law firm Your Insurance Attorney, told Law360 Real Estate Authority that with natural disasters intensifying, the Trump administration's cuts to FEMA are likely to put more pressure on states and property owners in an already challenging insurance environment.
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May 27, 2025
Contractor Blames Architect In $17.6M Conn. School Fire Suit
Connecticut contractor United Roofing & Sheet Metal Inc. on Tuesday asked a state trial court judge to throw out an architectural firm's attempt to shift blame after a school roof twice caught fire during a construction job, causing an alleged $17.6 million in damage.
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May 27, 2025
NC Justices Say Insured's Failure To Read Doesn't Bar Claim
North Carolina's highest court found a homeowner isn't barred from suing an insurance agency for negligence over false answers on a property insurance application even though he never read the document, saying context bears on his culpability.
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May 23, 2025
Chubb Denies ÂŁ1.2M Claim Over NYT Journalist's Crash
Chubb has denied having to pay ÂŁ1.2 million ($1.6 million) in a reinsurance chain following a settlement of claims brought by a woman who was injured in a car crash while being driven by a New York Times journalist in Scotland.
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May 22, 2025
Virus Coverage Revival Loss Shows Import Of Judicial Finality
A North Carolina federal court's ruling that Golden Corral can't set aside a judgment against its bid for pandemic-related coverage despite recent policyholder success in the state Supreme Court highlighted the importance of judicial finality, while marking the difference between state and federal courts weighing insurance issues.
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May 22, 2025
Mich. Justices To Review Nationwide's Unitary Tax Filing Win
The Michigan Supreme Court agreed Thursday to weigh an appeal by the state's tax agency of a decision that said Nationwide entities could file their taxes as a unitary group to share tax credits among its members.
Expert Analysis
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4 Ways Attorneys Can Emotionally Prepare For Trial
In the course of litigation, trial lawyers face a number of scenarios that can incite an emotional response, but formulating a mental game plan in advance of trial can help attorneys stay cool, calm and collected in the moment, says Rachel Lary at Lightfoot Franklin.
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Presidential Campaign Errors Provide Lessons For Trial Attys
Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign employed numerous strategies that evidently didn’t land, and trial attorneys should take note, because voters and jurors are both decision-makers who are listening for how one’s case presentation would affect them personally, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Notable Q3 Updates In Insurance Class Actions
Total loss valuation cases and labor depreciation cases dominated the past quarter of insurance class actions, with courts continuing to reject challenges to condition adjustments in the former, and a pro-insured trend persisting in the latter, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.
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How Property Insurance Coverage Shrank After The Pandemic
Insurers litigating property claims are leveraging rulings that provided relief in the COVID-19 context to reverse the former majority rule on physical loss or damage in all contexts, say attorneys at Reed Smith.
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Consider The Impact Of Election Stress On Potential Jurors
For at least the next few months, potential jurors may be working through anger and distrust stemming from the presidential election, and trial attorneys will need to assess whether those jurors are able to leave their political concerns at the door, says Ken Broda-Bahm at Persuasion Strategies.
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NC Ruling Takes Practical Approach To Duty-To-Defend Costs
In Murphy-Brown v. Ace American Insurance, a case of first impression, the North Carolina Business Court adopted the commonsense rationale of many state courts in holding that policyholders' defense costs should be deemed presumtively reasonable when a insurer breaches its duty to defend, say attorneys at McGuireWoods.
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What Hawaii High Court Got Right And Wrong In AIG Ruling
Though the Hawaii Supreme Court in its recent Aloha Petroleum v. National Union Fire Insurance decision correctly adopted the majority rule that recklessly caused harm is an accident for coverage purposes, it erred in its interpretation of the pollution exclusion by characterizing climate change as "traditional environmental pollution," say attorneys at Haynes Boone.
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7 Tips To Help Your Witness Be A Cross-Exam Heavyweight
Because jurors tend to pay a little more attention to cross-examination, attorneys should train their witnesses to strike a balance — making it tough for opposing counsel to make their side’s case, without coming across as difficult to the jury, says Ken Broda-Bahm at Persuasion Strategies.
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Key Insurance Implications Of Hawaii's Historic GHG Ruling
In Aloha Petroleum v. National Union Fire Insurance, the Hawaii Supreme Court became the first state court to classify greenhouse gasses as pollutants barred from insurance coverage, a ruling likely to be afforded great weight by courts across the country, say Scott Seaman and Gar Lauerman at Hinshaw & Culbertson.
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Use The Right Kind Of Feedback To Help Gen Z Attorneys
Generation Z associates bring unique perspectives and expectations to the workplace, so it’s imperative that supervising attorneys adapt their feedback approach in order to help young lawyers learn and grow — which is good for law firms, too, says Rachael Bosch at Fringe Professional Development.
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Congress Can And Must Enact A Supreme Court Ethics Code
As public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court dips to historic lows following reports raising conflict of interest concerns, Congress must exercise its constitutional power to enact a mandatory and enforceable code of ethics for the high court, says Muhammad Faridi, president of the New York City Bar Association.
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State Of The States' AI Legal Ethics Landscape
Over the past year, several state bar associations, as well as the American Bar Association, have released guidance on the ethical use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, all of which share overarching themes and some nuanced differences, say Eric Pacifici and Kevin Henderson at SMB Law Group.
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Defining All-Risk: Despite $30M Loss, Loose Bolt Not 'Damage'
A Massachusetts federal court’s recent ruling in AMAG Pharmaceuticals v. American Guarantee and Liability Insurance Co., denying coverage for $30 million in damages claimed when a loose bolt caused an air leak, highlights an ongoing debate over the definition of “direct physical loss or damage,” say Josh Tumen and Paul Ferland at Cozen O'Connor.