On May 8, 2019, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee signed into law Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1450 (“ESHB 1450”), a new law governing noncompetition agreements in the State of Washington. The law takes effect on more about this article »
Under Washington law, it is conventional wisdom that a carrier should defend the insured under a reservation of rights and file a declaratory judgment action. Coverage by estoppel, or losing the right to challenge coverage more about this article »
In October, Division Two of the Washington Court of Appeals held that a UIM insurer cannot be compelled to disclose attorney-client privileged and work-product documents generated after a claimant has filed a bad-faith suit. Richardson more about this article »
In the recent aftermath of the Washington Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Xia v. Probuilders, many feared the end of the application of CGL exclusions in Washington. But the most recent decision to apply Xia more about this article »
In the golden days of yesteryear, Oregon law was mostly a model of fairness to insurance companies. But it increasingly appears that those days must be safely tucked away in the nostalgia file. The tenor more about this article »
Last week, the Washington Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Xia v. ProBuilders Specialty Ins. Co. on the subject of the absolutely pollution exclusion (“APE”) as applied to a carbon monoxide leak in a more about this article »
Although the Insurance Fair Conduct Act (IFCA) has been in place for ten years now, the Washington Supreme Court has at last resolved one of the Act’s most significant ambiguities: whether a regulatory violation, without more about this article »
The ALI’s Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance (currently in draft form) is the subject of controversy over whether the proposed rules are excessively favorable to policyholders and whether they reflect true “majority rules.” more about this article »
Earlier this year, two federal courts reached the common-sense conclusion that upright and occupied buildings could not have been in a state of collapse during the term of a first-party insurance policy that expired years more about this article »
In our business, particularly defending bad faith allegations lobbed against insurers, we regularly run into the perception of the insurance industry as the big bad wolf of modern society. It was refreshing, therefore, to hear more about this article »
