The October 21, 2016 DDoS attack on the internet’s domain name system infrastructure underscores the need to consider cyberliability insurance coverage as a critical component of your company’s security and privacy breach response plan, and if your company carries cyberliability insurance, to ensure that your coverage will respond to a network business interruption, security breach
2016 Insurance and Risk Management Checklist
As we start a new year, there is no time like the present to evaluate your company’s insurance and risk management program and plan for the year. What should you consider as you move into 2016? Take a look at our checklist of questions you should consider now to evaluate your risk management program this
Insurers Beware: Respond Promptly or Lose the Right to Control the Defense
The tables may be turning. Insurers often seek to avoid their coverage obligations by invoking time limitations in their policies for providing claim notifications. On the other hand, these same insurers routinely take their sweet time in responding to claims, contending that they need time to “investigate” even before making a decision whether or not to provide a defense to a lawsuit, which in most cases simply requires the insurer to review the allegations in the complaint to determine whether there is a potential for coverage under their policies. Once they decide to provide a defense (which in some cases can be weeks if not months after the insured has had to retain its own defense counsel to respond to a suit), insurers claim they have the right to control the insured’s defense, including the selection of defense counsel, and will force the insured to accept new defense counsel that are not up to speed on the case. Not so fast, according to a recent decision from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Continue Reading Insurers Beware: Respond Promptly or Lose the Right to Control the Defense
Data Breaches Are Not Academic: Colleges and Universities Should Take Appropriate Steps To Avoid or at Least Minimize Their Exposure
Data breaches at colleges and universities are on the rise. These institutions are targets because their networks have access to a large amount of private information, including educational and medical records, as well as employees’ personal data. But in other instances, their systems are being attacked for malicious sport.
In a recent Client Alert members
California Supreme Court Issues Sweeping Pro-Policyholder Decision on Environmental Liability Coverage Issues
This post was also written by Megan Demeter.
On March 9, 2009, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in State of California v. Allstate Insurance Co., Case No. S149988. In this unanimous decision, the court resolved several issues in favor of the policyholder regarding the application of pollution exclusion provisions in the State’s comprehensive general liability insurance policies. The case arises out of the State of California’s liability for environmental contamination at the “Stringfellow Acid Pits,” a state designed and operated waste-disposal facility in Riverside County, California.
First, the Court addressed the relevant “discharge” for determining whether the “sudden and accidental” exception to the pollution exclusion applied and, therefore, reinstated coverage that otherwise would have been excluded. The contamination at issue was caused by the escape into the environment of pollutants placed into containment ponds on the site. The court affirmed the Court of Appeal’s decision that the relevant discharge for purposes of determining whether the discharge was “sudden and accidental” is the release of waste from the containment ponds, rather than the initial disposal of waste into the ponds, as the insurers argued.Continue Reading California Supreme Court Issues Sweeping Pro-Policyholder Decision on Environmental Liability Coverage Issues