Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Court of Appeals holds that insured is bound by terms of the policy even if the policy was never delivered to him

In my last post I discussed Gargano v. Liberty Int'l Underwriters, Inc., in which the plaintiff sought coverage under claims-made policies even though the underlying claim was not both made and reported in any single policy period.

The plaintiff argued that the companies should not be allowed to rely on the requirement that a claim be made and reported during a policy period to deny the claim because the insurers had never delivered copies of the policies to him. The court held, "[a]s a general matter 'neither delivery nor actual possession by the insured is essential to the making of an insurance contract unless the contract expressly sets out a requirement of delivery.'"

1 comment:

Fergus O'Rourke said...

Your summary is misleading, in my opinion.

The policies were delivered to the policyholder through his agents. The consequences of any failure of communication between the agents and the policyholder would not be validly visited on the insurer.