In June, the South Carolina Supreme Court addressed waiver of the attorney-client privilege in bad faith refusal to provide coverage cases and found that, under South Carolina law, an insurer that asserts its subjective understanding of the law, as informed by counsel, as a defense to a bad faith claim may implicitly waive the privilege
The Supreme Court of South Carolina recently determined that non-signatory insureds could not be compelled to arbitrate their claims under an arbitration clause in an agency agreement where the insureds did not obtain a direct benefit from that agreement.
In Wilson v. Willis, the court considered 14 lawsuits that had been filed against an
We all know how prevalent bad faith claims are. It seems like almost every case involving disputed policy benefits includes one. Many have no merit and should be disposed of on summary judgment. The rest, however, arguably have at least some degree of legitimacy. While it may not seem that difficult to identify those that present significant exposure,
Last year, the President issued an Executive Order directing the Secretary of the Department of Labor (DOL) to issue regulations to expand access to association health plans (AHPs). Earlier this year, the DOL issued final regulations and FAQs on AHPs. The regulations broaden the definition of an “employer” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act
Alabama’s Elder Abuse Act attempts to protect financial abuse of elders. But by not including insurance companies and insurance agents, does the Act go far enough?
Following up on the blog post from late June concerning the intersection of elder abuse laws and long-term care litigation, this post concerns an Alabama statute aiming to prevent
A long-term care insurance class action filed in May 2018 highlights the importance of clearly defined policy language. At dispute in the lawsuit pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois is the definition of “premium class.” The phrase is not defined in the Continental Casualty Company (CNA) policy, which
A Letter from the Editors
Because each state’s laws related to insurance are unique and because federal courts’ application of ERISA to a set of facts can vary from circuit to circuit, there exist myriad nuances in the law as applied to life, health, disability and long-term care insurance. To address this somewhat amorphous area
In at least one state, California, the answer to the question of “Do issues related to long-term care and elder abuse intersect?” is yes. The California Welfare and Institutions Code defines “financial abuse” of an elder adult to include an “entity” depriving an elder adult “of any property, including by means of an agreement, donative transfer,
One year after its initial decision in a significant bad faith case, the Texas Supreme Court has issued its much-awaited opinion in USAA Tex. Lloyds Co. v. Menchaca. The case involved a homeowner whose post-Hurricane Ike property damage claim was denied by USAA Texas Lloyds Company (USAA). At trial, the jury found that USAA did not
