This blog’s readers know that a claim arising from the current coronavirus-related outbreak could present a number of insurance-related issues, including, among many others, perennial issues involving timeliness of notice of claim. In the following guest post, Daniel Wolf, an associate at the Gilbert LLP law firm, take a look at notice of claim considerations businesses may want to take into account with respect to potential coronavirus-related claims A version of this article first appeared on his firm’s blog. I would like to thank Daniel 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 Daniel’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: For Businesses at Risk of COVID-19 Lawsuits, Consider Providing Notice of Circumstance
Claims made policies provide coverage for claims first made during the policy period, but only if the insurer is provided with timely notice of claim. Most claims made policies allow policyholders to provide insurers with a notice of circumstances that may give rise to a claim in the future, in order to make the date of the notice of circumstances as the claims made date for any future claims. A recent Sixth Circuit considered a situation in which a policyholder attempted to provide notice of circumstances, even though, the court later concluded, a claim had already been made. The appellate court concluded that because the policyholder’s notice omitted the circumstance the court considered to represent a claim, the attempted notice was insufficient to provide notice of the actual claim. The court’s decisions raises questions about policyholder’s notice obligations under the policy. The Sixth Circuit’s July 10, 2018 decision can be found 
In an interesting June 23, 2017 opinion in a case raising a host of claims made date, notice of potential claims, and notice of claims issues, Western District of Tennessee Judge 
Many D&O insurance policies contain specific prior litigation exclusions precluding coverage for claims made during the policy year related to proceedings commenced prior to the policy inception. A question that can arise is the issue of what type of prior proceedings or actions triggers this exclusion. The Second Circuit recently considered whether a Maryland attorney general’s office’s letter threatening that it “may” bring an enforcement action triggered an exclusion precluding coverage for a claim “involving” any prior “demand, suit or other proceeding.” In a March 7, 2016 summary order (