fiduciary liability insurance

Larry Fine

As I noted in a recent post, there recently has been an increase in excessive fee litigation against plan fiduciaries. In the following guest post, Larry Fine takes a look at recent developments in excessive fee litigation, and the implications for the fiduciary liability insurance industry. Larry is the Management Liability Coverage Leader at Willis Towers Watson. I would like to thank Larry 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. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Larry’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Excessive Fees, Excessive Fiduciary Litigation: A Balanced Look

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 here.
Continue Reading No Contract Claims Asserted, Yet Contractual Liability Exclusion Precludes D&O Insurance Coverage

missAs part of our beat here at the The D&O Diary, we read a lot of judicial opinions. We are quite accustomed to the fact that the case outcomes can be and often are all over the map. Just the same, every now and then we read a decision that really makes us scratch our heads. That was our reaction when we read Southern District of Mississippi Chief Judge Louis Guirola, Jr.’s October 2, 2015 opinion in the Singing River Health Systems case (here), in which Judge Guirola, applying Mississippi law, held that when a fiduciary liability insurer defends its insured under a reservation of rights, the defense expense payments do not erode the policy’s limits of liability. A number of questions and concerns may fairly be raised about this decision, as discussed below. The Traub Lieberman Insurance Law Blog has an October 5, 2015 post about Judge Guirola’s decision, here.
Continue Reading Defense Costs Paid Under Reservation of Rights Do Not Erode Fiduciary Liability Policy’s Limit of Liability?

I am pleased to publish below a guest post from Rhonda Prussack, Executive Vice President and Product Manager, Fiduciary Liability, for Chartis, and her colleague at Chartis, Larry Fine, Global Head Professional Liability Claims, Financial Lines Claims. Rhonda’s and Larry’s guest post is written in response to a recent guest post on this blog about the

I am pleased to publish below a guest post from my good friend Kimberly M. Melvin and her colleague John E. Howell, both of the Wiley Rein LLP law firm. Kim and John’s article discusses a recent decision from New York’s high court and its implications for the scope of coverage under a fiduciary

In a noteworthy subprime-related litigation development, on August 5, 2009, the parties to the Countrywide ERISA action filed a stipulation of settlement (here), together with a request for preliminary court approval. Under the stipulation, the case is to be settled by a payment of $55 million, to be funded entirely by Countrywide’s fiduciary