As I have noted in prior posts, among the many implications from the current coronavirus outbreak is the possibility that the pandemic might result in D&O claims. This possibility in turn has a number of D&O insurance underwriting implications. In the following guest post, John F. McCarrick, a partner in the White & Williams law firm, takes a look at these possible underwriting implications. A version of this article previously was published as a White & Williams client alert. I would like to thank John for allowing me to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers.
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On March 10, 2020, as part of a Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS) series of recorded discussions on the possible professional liability insurance implications of the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak, I participated in a short conversation on the viral outbreak’s D&O insurance implications. Joining me for the conversation were my good friends Carl Metzger of the
A deceased small business owner’s widow sued the business’s two other co-owners for breach of fiduciary duty for failing to apply a life insurance payout to the company to buy out her deceased husband’s shares. The two co-owners submitted the claim to their company’s management liability insurer, which denied coverage for the claim, relying in part on the policy’s contractual liability exclusion. The two co-owners sued the insurer seeking coverage. The district court granted summary judgment for the insurer. On February 19, 2020, the Eighth Circuit, applying Kansas law, affirmed the district court in an opinion that, as discussed below, raises some interesting issues. The Eighth Circuit’s opinion can be found 
In the following guest post, Paul Ferrillo, a partner in the McDermott, Will & Emery law firm, takes a look at Excess Side A insurance and discusses its importance as part of a well-structured D&O insurance program. I would like to thank Paul for his willingness to allow me to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Paul’s article.
Before the ice age, before the flood, before some of the people reading this were even born, the big D&O insurance coverage issue was allocation – that is, the division of loss between covered and non-covered claims or between covered and non-covered parties. After a flurry of judicial decisions in the mid-‘90s, after the addition of entity coverage to the standard D&O insurance policy (also in the mid-‘90s), and after policy allocation language became more or less standardized, litigated allocation disputes became much less frequent. Indeed, the last time I had occasion to write about an allocation coverage decision on this blog 
Regular readers know that among the 