Insurance Law Commons^™

Modernizing Disability Income For Cancer Survivors, Ann C. Hodges

Law Faculty Publications

The medical progress in cancer treatment is worthy of celebration, as survivors of many cancers are living longer. This good news, however, comes with challenges for those survivors. Empirical evidence from researchers at cancer centers demonstrates the devastating impact that cancer has on employment, resulting in serious financial stress for survivors and their families. My previous research used this empirical data to recommend changes in employment laws to meet the need of survivors to maintain employment. This article builds on the prior research by using the empirical evidence of the employment effects of cancer to recommend changes in the disability …

Wagering On The Lives Of Strangers: The Insurable Interest Requirement In The Life Insurance Secondary Market, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to explore and analyze the crucial inter- relationship and the present tension existing between various life settlement alternatives and the insurable interest requirement for life insurance. Does the 240-year-old insurable interest doctrine adequately meet the needs of a modern society in recognizing a secondary market for life in- surance? If so, what additional remedies, if any, are available to both the insured and the insurer to legally protect the contractual rights and reasonable expectations of the parties?

Nondiscrimination In Insurance: The Next Chapter, Mary L. Heen

Law Faculty Publications

Modern federal civil rights legislation prohibits race and gender discrimination in many important sectors of the American economy, including employment, education, public accommodations, housing, and credit. No comparable comprehensive federal civil rights legislation bans race and gender discrimination in the business of insurance-a business at the core of legal and social organization, culture, and finance. Why not?

Insurance At The Energy-Water Nexus, Donald T. Hornstein

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Why Won't My Homeowners Insurance Cover My Loss?": Reassessing Property Insurance Concurrent Causation Coverage Disputes, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

Property insurance coverage disputes can be extremely complex cases when there are multiple concurrent causes in a causal chain of events and when some of these concurrent causes are covered under the policy language but other concurrent causes are excluded from coverage. To complicate matters enormously, there are no fewer than three different judicial approaches attempting to resolve this concurrent causation interpretive conundrum. Over the past two decades, a number of property insurance companies have attempted to address this interpretive problem contractually by inserting so-called anti-concurrent causation clauses into their property insurance policy language. But these anti-concurrent causation clauses have …

Liability Insurance Coverage For Clergy Sexual Abuse Claims, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

This article addresses issues that arise when a policyholder under a standard general liability insurance policy, not containing an express sexual abuse coverage endorsement (or an express sexual abuse exclusion), seeks insurance coverage for sexual abuse claims. Such cases continue to increase in frequency as the legacy of sexual abuse and molestation generates an unrelenting deluge of insurance coverage claims.

The purpose of this article is to explore and analyze the case law and various legal theories supporting and rejecting liability insurance coverage claims involving institutional sexual abuse allegations. This article concludes by recommending a better-reasoned objective concurrent causation legal …

Principles Of Insurance Law, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

From Coverture To Contract: Engendering Insurance On Lives, Mary L. Heen

Law Faculty Publications

In the 1840s, state legislatures began modifying the law of marital status to ease the economic distress of widows and children at the family breadwinner's death. Insurance-related exceptions to the common law doctrine of "marital unity" under coverture permitted married women to enter into insurance contracts and protected life insurance proceeds from their husbands' creditors. These early insurance-related statutory exceptions to coverture introduced an important theoretical question that persisted for the rest of the nineteenth century-and into the next-as broader legal and social reforms took hold. How could equality of contract for married women be reconciled with the traditional dependencies …

Equally Insured? Lasting Insurance Industry Reform Came Only With A Rethinking Of Race, Mary L. Heen

Law Faculty Publications

Earlier this decade, some of America’s best-known life insurance companies quietly settled multimillion-dollar civil rights lawsuits challenging race-based life insurance rates and benefits. As a result, those companies closed a chapter of American economic history that began after the Civil War with the door-to-door marketing of small individual life insurance policies to poor workers, including former slaves, and their families. The closing of this chapter in history also marked the end of a form of Jim Crow race discrimination largely invisible to the American public.

Health Care Law, Kathleen M. Mccauley, Kristi L. Vanderlaan

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ending Jim Crow Life Insurance Rates, Mary L. Heen

Law Faculty Publications

This Article tells the story of the rise and fall of explicit race-based pricing practices as American life insurance companies responded to changes in the social, economic, and legal status of former slaves. The role of law in that story, from the Civil War to the beginning of this century, illustrates the complex interaction between civil rights reform and private commercial markets. Despite early laws prohibiting race-based life insurance rates, racial discrimination persisted in various forms for over a century due to the strength of the underlying racial ideologies, the rhetorical power of actuarial language, and the structure and regulation …

Causation Requirements In Tort And Insurance Law Practice: Demystifying Some Legal Causation Riddles, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

Legal causation requirements, in both tort and insurance law, rank among the most pervasive yet most elusive and most misunderstood of all legal concepts in Anglo-American law for legal practitioners, the courts,' and academic scholars alike. Indeed, no less an authority than William Lloyd Prosser has stated that there "is perhaps nothing in the entire field of law which has called forth more disagreement, or upon which the opinions are in such a welter of confusion" than proximate cause issues, "despite the manifold attempts which have been made to clarify the subject."

Although some commentators have looked upon legal causation's …

The Insurable Interest Requirement For Life Insurance: A Critical Reassessment, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

The purpose of this Article is to critically reassess the insurable interest requirement in life insurance coverage disputes in light of the present needs of contemporary American society, including analysis of: (1) legal interpretations and underlying public policy rationales supporting such an insurable interest; (2) who is legally entitled to an insurable interest in the life of another; (3) when an insurable interest must exist; (4) when an insurable interest is-or should be-extinguished; (5) who may challenge the lack of an insurable interest; (6) whether an insurable interest in life insurance is subject to waiver or estoppel defenses; and (7) …

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. V. Campbell: Refining Bmw Of North America, Inc. V. Gore And Further Restricting Punitive Damages, Bridget E. Leonard

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Insurance Binders Revisited, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

Temporary contracts of insurance-binders-protect the insured during the time between completion of the application and issuance of the policy. They are an accepted and necessary part of the insurance business, used in connection with a wide variety of insurance P7:oducts. But when alleged coverage under a binder is the subject of litigation, the results are often inconsistent and, sometimes, indefensible. This article provides a comprehensive discussion of binders, including the differences between standard form and manuscript binders, binding receipts in property and casualty insurance and conditional receipts in life insurance policies, the various kinds of conditional receipts, and otherwise. The …

Health Care Law, Peter M. Mellette, Emily W. G. Towey, J. Vaden Hunt

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Insurance Causation Issues: The Legacy Of Bird V. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

In all of Anglo-American law, there is no concept that has been as been so pervasive - and yet so elusive - as the causation requirement; and even today this causation requirement in American law has resisted all efforts to reduce it to a useful, understandable, and comprehensive formula regarding its underlying nature, content, scope, and significance. Indeed, no less an authority than William Lloyd Prosser has stated that there "is perhaps nothing in the entire field of the law which has called forth more disagreement, or upon which the opinions are in such a welter of confusion" than legal …

The Incalculable Risk: How The World Trade Center Disaster Accelerated The Evolution Of Insurance Terrorism Exclusions, Jane Kendall

University of Richmond Law Review

"The deliberate and deadly attacks, which were carried out yesterday against our country, were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war."

- President George W. Bush, September 12, 2001.

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Insurance Law, J. Douglas Cuthbertson

University of Richmond Law Review

This article discusses judicial decisions and various legislation that have affected the law of insurance in Virginia since June 1, 2000. As in years past, most of the changes have taken place in the area of uninsured/underinsured motorist ('"JAVUIM") insurance coverage. This article will discuss these developments as well as those in other areas of insurance law-specifically, those pertaining to agents, coverage, the insurer's duty to defend, fire insurance, life insurance, misrepresentation, and waiver and estoppel.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Insurance Law, Terrence L. Graves, J. Douglas Cuthbertson

University of Richmond Law Review

This article reviews the changes in Virginia insurance law that have occurred in the past two years. Most of the developments have been in motor vehicle liability and uninsured/underinsured motorist ("VM/UIM") coverage. But the article also surveys cases on bad faith, fire insurance, insurance regulation, life insurance, motor vehicle medical expense insurance, and waiver and estoppel.

Planning For High Net-Worth U.S. Persons Through The Use Of Offshore Life Insurance, J. Richard Duke

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

Sophisticated planning for the high net-worth United States citizens often includes the use of offshore variable life insurance. Such leading edge planning is accomplished through structures that provide income, gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax planning not available domestically. In addition to providing sophisticated tax and estate planning benefits, variable life insurance policies issued by foreign-based carriers have numerous economic advantages.

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Realistic Consensus Approach To The Insurance Law Doctrine Of Reasonable Expectations, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

This article's fundamental premise is that, over the past three decades, despite all the debate and confusion surrounding the underlying theory and practice of the insurance law doctrine of reasonable expectations, a modem consensus approach has finally emerged within the academic community and the courts and among insurance law practitioners involving a realistic and viable application of the doctrine to the needs of contemporaryground" synthesis of traditional, objective, and contractually based reasonable expectations principles grafted onto elements of the more modem Keeton formulation of the doctrine. Moreover, this realistic consensus approach to the doctrine of reasonable expectations is both theoretically …

Symposium Introduction, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

This Symposium addresses a number of the serious questions and issues involving the insurance law doctrine of reasonable expectations after three decades. We are fortunate to have ten excellent symposium articles analyzing the doctrine of reasonable expectations from various perspectives, written by seven academic lawyers, two prominent insurance law practitioners, and an eminent jurist.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Insurance Law, Terrence L. Graves

University of Richmond Law Review

This article will summarize and discuss case decisions and statutory changes in the field of insurance law that have taken place over the last two years. As in years past, most of the cases involve automobile coverage, particularly uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. Other areas covered by this article include the following: liability insurance, automobile medical payments coverage, insurance regulation, fire insurance, and homeowners insurance.

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Does Lack Of An Insurable Interest Preclude An Insurance Agent From Taking An Absolute Assignment Of His Client's Life Policy?, Johnny C. Parker

University of Richmond Law Review

To understand any concept it helps to know the purposes it serves and the objectives it seeks to achieve. The maxim that one "must have an insurable interest in the life or property insured" has haunted insurance law for centuries. This doctrine conditions both the validity and enforceability of insurance contracts upon the existence of an insurable interest in the person who purchases the policy. The considerations which underlie the insurable interest requirement are generally expressed in terms of public policy: (1) against allowing wagering contracts; (2) against fostering temptation to destroy the insured property or life in an effort …

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Insurance Law, Beverly W. Snukals, Fiona M. Tower

University of Richmond Law Review

This article addresses the significant case decisions and statutory changes in the past year in the field of insurance. Most of the cases involved automobile insurance coverage. Other cases involved insurance agent liability, duty of good faith to third party beneficiaries, and interpretation of general liability policies. The statutory changes were minor amendments to statutes dealing with medical payments coverage and cancellation of motor vehicle insurance policies.

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.