Corporate Insurance Blog

Kirk Hartley, one of the prolific authors of GlobalTort, just posted “Commentary On The Definition of Occurrence in Insurance Policies – Another Reason GCs for Insureds Get Grey Hair Managing Legacy Claims,” in which he commented on my post, “Is Uncertainty Over the Meaning of “Occurrence” Susceptible to a Drafting Solution?”

Kirk says that it’s “[a]n interesting post,” the original and complete version of which is found over at the Adams Drafting blog, because Ken Adams, Adam Scales, and I address an issue that Kirk says will cause “[b]illions and soon trillions of dollars [to] change hands based on the meaning given or found by court’s deciding insurance coverage cases for underlying toxic tort cases.”

Kirk was kind enough to conclude that “[t]he following words from Scott are key:”

“Although the term was designed to be a clarification of coverage, it comes as no surprise to someone who represents policyholders when claims have been denied that insurance companies would have courts believe that instead, “occurrence” was designed to support coverage denials or limitations. Insurance companies also are happy to argue conflicting interpretations of “occurrence,” depending on which interpretation will mean less coverage for the policyholder in the dispute at issue.”

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