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The scope of a common exclusion in Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI) policies relating to “wage-and- hour and overtime law(s)” is narrower than a trial court found and therefore EPLI coverage can apply to a wider set of employment claims, according to the California Court of Appeal in the 4th Appellate District.

After years of losses in the multifamily habitational market, insurers have become far more cautious for both property and casualty coverages, cutting back capacity or even leaving the market altogether. Rates and deductibles have been rising—sometimes significantly—as carriers, more closely scrutinize the risks they are willing to entertain while adding a variety of exclusions.

Newest REDY® Feature Combines Individual Producer Knowledge with the Power of Proprietary Data to Help Retail Agents Win

The CDC estimates that almost 3 million Americans were affected by concussion or traumatic brain injury (TBI) related emergencies in 2014, with almost a third of those events impacting children.

The marketplace for directors' and officers’ liability insurance is changing, but what those changes ultimately will mean is not yet clear. In a classic case of cause and effect, litigation and losses that have been pressuring D&O insurers for some time are prompting underwriters to raise rates, tighten terms and conditions, and cut capacity. D&O for public companies has changed dramatically, and financial pressures are now forcing changes to coverage for private and nonprofit organizations as well.

The sharing economy reaches far beyond rides and vacation rentals. Entrepreneurs are creating on-demand solutions wherever the sharing approach shows promise, targeting everything from services such as deliveries, home repairs and gardening to sharing personal property including baby strollers, tools and formal wear.

Active assailants continue to threaten businesses, houses of worship, schools and public events across the United States. Reported instances of workplace violence, ranging from threats to physical assaults and homicides, impact nearly 2 million Americans each year.

Commercial trucking serves as a barometer for the economy. It represented nearly 71% of the tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation in 2017, including manufactured and retail goods. With more trucks on the road, there were also more accidents, including a rise in fatalities. Trucks were involved in 59% more accidents per mile than in 2010, despite the new technologies and the best efforts of regulators, according to the American Trucking Association (ATA). Further, the number of people who died in large truck crashes was also 30% higher than in 2009, when it was the lowest it has been since the collection of fatal crash data began in 1975.

There is no one perfect insurance policy for all clients, but retail agents can help their insureds find appropriate coverage forms by focusing on the exposure. This is especially true of cyber liability insurance.

Foodborne illnesses such as E. coli and salmonella sicken about one in six Americans, or about 48 million, and kill about 3,000 every year, the CDC estimates.

In an increasingly connected world, many cyber insurers are reporting a significant increase in social engineering claims — particularly at organizations involved in real estate and other financial services. That means retail agents and their insureds can expect to see some changes in the marketplace. As social engineering scams increase, some insurers are reducing cybercrime limits, raising premiums for cybercrime coverage, requiring policyholders to take risk mitigation steps or withdrawing from covering cybercrime altogether.

Parametric insurance has made its biggest impact so far with catastrophe bonds covering large-scale risks, such as hurricanes and earthquakes, but the concept is becoming more common in commercial and residential insurance. It’s called parametric because rather than responding to a specific loss, the coverage pays out when an agreed “metric” such as wind speed or ground shaking reaches or exceeds certain intensity. Insurers are offering such coverage based on a wide variety of other metrics, including barometric pressure, rainfall, average snowfall, river water levels, storm surge as measured by tide gauges and even hotel occupancy rates.

Businesses in many industries are becoming targets in a wave of liability litigation. Since 2017, courts have considered more than 3,000 lawsuits around the country alleging that defendants’ websites violate the accessibility requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other civil rights laws. Many businesses facing such suits have been unaware that their websites prevent individuals with disabilities from accessing all of their sites’ features, such as job applications or lists of physical locations, as in the case of retail stores or restaurants.

Do-overs can be good after making a mistake, but for construction contractors, there are a lot of downsides to redoing work. “Ripping and tearing out” construction materials after identifying an error can be costly, delay the completion of a project and damage the contractor’s business relationships. Even worse is the unpleasant discovery that such rework may not be covered by the contractor’s professional liability policy.

From the Empire State Building to the Freedom Tower and the Hudson Yards project, New York’s construction industry has earned a global reputation for innovation. That vibrant spirit, however, has been dampened by a unique labor law dating back to the 1880s governing falls at construction sites. Commonly referred to as the New York’s Scaffold Law, this section of the Labor Law has driven overall construction costs higher, sent insurance premiums soaring above levels for other states, and led some major carriers to leave the market altogether. Those challenges make it imperative to work with brokers specializing in this complex and constantly changing market.