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Congress’ stated purpose for enacting the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq. (ERISA), was to “protect…participants in employee benefit plans and their beneficiaries…by establishing standards of conduct, responsibility, and obligation for fiduciaries of employee benefit plans, and by providing for appropriate remedies, sanctions, and ready access to the federal courts.” 1 Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Pilot Life Insurance Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U.S. 41 (1987), the […]

THE INSURANCE COMPANY’S OPTIONS WHEN SETTLING AFTER RESERVING ITS RIGHTS Assuming coverage, or at least its ostensible existence, insurance companies are supposed to settle third-party claims against their insureds lest the anodyne of bad faith liability be unleashed. Insurance companies often do not agree wholeheartedly with the policyholder that coverage exists. A potent weapon in the arsenal of rights preserved to insurance companies by their insurance policies and statutory and common law is the reservation […]

“Nobody expects the insurance industry’s response to claims of coverage for a problem of the magnitude of Year 2000 liability to be open arms.” Europe in the year 999 approached the millennium’s end in barely concealed panic. Many of the nobility, in furtherance of the widespread religious belief that the world would come to a close along with the first millennium, deeded their entire lands and material goods to the church with the expectation of […]

Anyone who has ever been involved in what proves to be a relatively minor car accident knows that one of the biggest headaches from the entire ordeal comes from the damage to their vehicle.

Indeed, the headache rapidly reaches migraine proportions if their vehicle, which was otherwise in good working order, was totaled, such that they’re left looking for a new means of suitable transportation.