While the carrier may appear unreasonable, as a broker, I’ve not experienced many situations in which the insured’s first receipt of a written demand had been in the form of a formal complaint (unless it’s an out-of-the-blue multi-defendant case targeting several members of a certain industry group). So, even if their Notice of Claim had been delivered to the carrier’s claim office location during the earlier policy period, the carrier could still have tried to reject the claim based on late reporting if the plaintiff had earlier stated a demand in any pre-litigation letters or emails.
Fortunately, the physical location of the claims office should no longer become an issue for other insureds since policies today can be endorsed to allow for claim reporting via email.
What concerns me is that the insured didn’t report the claim at the point they disclosed the matter in their renewal application. Possibly, given their business, their policy excluded antitrust claims, and if so, this may have caused them to initially decide to retain the risk (their choice, but usually not recommended) until defense costs really started to add up.
This article shouldn’t be about the address the claim was sent to, but the procedures of claims made policies. The fact that the claim was sent to the wrong address seems immaterial because of the proximity and intent of the client. Cases like these give the industry the reputation of insurance being all about the small print. That being said, I don’t believe a company should pay more than its legally liable to pay, but blaming it on the address seems like a stretch.
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It appears application of the 4 Corners rule is getting more & more onerous
While the carrier may appear unreasonable, as a broker, I’ve not experienced many situations in which the insured’s first receipt of a written demand had been in the form of a formal complaint (unless it’s an out-of-the-blue multi-defendant case targeting several members of a certain industry group). So, even if their Notice of Claim had been delivered to the carrier’s claim office location during the earlier policy period, the carrier could still have tried to reject the claim based on late reporting if the plaintiff had earlier stated a demand in any pre-litigation letters or emails.
Fortunately, the physical location of the claims office should no longer become an issue for other insureds since policies today can be endorsed to allow for claim reporting via email.
What concerns me is that the insured didn’t report the claim at the point they disclosed the matter in their renewal application. Possibly, given their business, their policy excluded antitrust claims, and if so, this may have caused them to initially decide to retain the risk (their choice, but usually not recommended) until defense costs really started to add up.
This article shouldn’t be about the address the claim was sent to, but the procedures of claims made policies. The fact that the claim was sent to the wrong address seems immaterial because of the proximity and intent of the client. Cases like these give the industry the reputation of insurance being all about the small print. That being said, I don’t believe a company should pay more than its legally liable to pay, but blaming it on the address seems like a stretch.