Insurance Law Commons^™

The Vesting, Modification, And Financing Of Public Retiree Health Benefits In Light Of New Accounting Rules, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1147 (2008), John Sanchez

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Government Support For Terrorism Insurance, Thomas Russell, Jeffrey E. Thomas

Faculty Works

Federal government support for the terrorism insurance industry has a very brief history. Prior to 9/11, insurers did not take terrorist-related losses into account when underwriting risks. The industry did not even conceive of an attack that could generate such significant losses. The dramatic shift in perception since then has caused many to suggest that terrorism risks are uninsurable. The notion that terrorism risk was uninsurable was part of the rationale advanced for government intervention. When the initial efforts at legislation failed, the industry began to withdraw from the market by adding exclusions for terrorism-related losses to their policies. Reinsurers …

Disaster Mediation: Lessons In Conflict Coordination And Collaboration, Mel Rubin

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

All of us have been affected by disasters, either directly or indirectly. Although natural and manmade disasters have occurred throughout history, the size and scale of future disasters will surely reach regional, national and international proportions. Indeed, there is now and forevermore a disaster industry, in which Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) professionals will certainly play an important role.

Adam, Martin And John: Iconography, Infrastructure, And America's Pathological Inconsistency About Medical Insurance, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Following the ongoing health care and insurance debate, which has once again moved toward center stage in American politics, one might understandably get the impression that the most important names in the area are politicians such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, John McCain, or Mitt Romney. Similarly, public intellectuals and pundits such as David Broder, David Brooks, Paul Krugman (or at least the New York Times and Wall Street Journal editorial pages) come to mind. Alternatively, health care scholars such as the instant Symposium participants or other health policy scholars such as Uwe Reinhardt, Troyen Brennan or Theodore …

Nearly Blown Away: How Policyholders Affected By Hurricane Katrina May Recover Under Their Homeowner's Insurance Policies In The Face Of Anti-Concurrent Causation Language, Austen Endersby

Student Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

When The "Business Of Insurance" And The State Action Doctrine Burden The Public Adjuster: Stripping Away Antitrust Immunity In The Insurance Field, Julie Galbo

Student Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Hurricanes Katrina And Rita: Anti-Concurrent Causation Clauses, Enforcement And Implications, Kimberly Myers

Student Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

D&O Insurance: The Tension Between Cooperating With The Insurance Company And Protecting Privileged Information From Third Party Plaintiffs, Lindsay Fisher

Seattle University Law Review

This comment argues that states should challenge the Real ID under the federalism principles enshrined in the Tenth Amendment, although the Act's driver licensing provisions infringe on both individual and state constitutional rights. A state challenge under the Tenth Amendment is more likely than modern individual rights jurisprudence to succeed in striking down Real ID. Arguing that the federal government impermissibly coerces state action under the Act will better protect both states and individual rights and succeed in having the Act overturned. Part II of this Comment provides a historical context for the enactment of Real ID and describes its …

The Disaster After The Disaster: Insurance Companies’ Post- Catastrophe Claims Handling Practices, Kelsey D. Dulin

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Where The Windfall Falls Short: “Appropriate Equitable Relief” After Sereboff V. Mid Atlantic Medical Services, Inc., Kristin L. Huffaker

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Reasonable Expectations Doctrine In Montana, Greg Munro

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

This article analyzes cases in Montana State and federal courts dealing with the reasonable expectations doctrine. A review of those decisions reveals that the doctrine is frequently invoked by counsel for insurance consumers and is readily applied by state and federal courts either to void a provision altogether or to resolve an ambiguity in a policy. Nevertheless, reasonable expectations in Montana reflect a lack of clarity about the doctrine resulting in conflicting court pronouncements. The article concludes with suggestions on how both counsel and the courts might achieve clarity and equitable results.

Book Review - Uninsured In America: Life And Death In The Land Of Opportunity, Elizabeth Pendo

Book Reviews

Health care reform tops our national policy agenda, ranking second only behind Iraq as the issue that the public wants the 2008 Presidential candidates to address. This is no surprise, as health care spending represents nearly one out of every six dollars spent in the national economy, costs continue to climb, and health insurance is increasingly hard to get, keep, and afford. The numbers are staggering, and numbing. Most of us have heard that 46.5 million people were without insurance for the entire year in 2006, and nearly 89.6 million people were without insurance for some period during 2006 or …

Insurance For Pollution In Montana, Greg Munro

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

This article reviews those Montana State and federal decisions involving insurance for pollution. The article begins by breaking down pollution insurance policies into four types over four periods: 1) "accident" based policies before 1966; 2) "occurrence" based policies post 1966; 3) policies containing "standard" pollution exclusion from 1970 until 1986; and 4) policies containing an absolute pollution exclusion from 1986 to date. The discussion of case decisions relates back to these policies and periods.

Who Is An "Insured" Under Uninsured Motorist, Underinsured Motorist, And Medical Pay Coverages Of A Corporate Auto Policy?, Greg Munro

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

This article examines Montana State and federal court cases involving attempts to secure coverage for an injured individual under a corporate auto policy and reviews them to reveal the arguments used to invoke coverage and the rulings that courts could have made.

The Virtues Of Medicare, Jill R. Horwitz

Reviews

Most of us look forward to a heaven where people don't get sick. But if they do, health care would be traded among fully informed patients and providers in perfectly competitive and frictionless markets. In that perfect world, sick citizens simply shop for doctors the way they shop for other consumer goods. The better doctors, like the most elegant hotel rooms and fanciest cars, would cost more than inferior doctors. Patients would consult their utility meters and, with appropriate attention to discounting over an infinite lifetime, choose accordingly. After each treatment, the patients would know the quality of their outcome …

(Debate) Medicare: Did The Devil Make Us Do It?, D. A. Hyman, Jill R. Horwitz

Articles

In this lively and creative debate, Professors David Hyman and Jill Horwitz argue about the virtues and vices of the federal Medicare program. As some predict a bleak future for the American’s government’s ability (or inability) to continue paying for Medicare as the population ages, this debate shows that there is genuine disagreement about the severity of the problem. In his Opening Statement, Professor Hyman offers a satirical letter to the Devil from one of his demonic servants, describes the Medicare program through the lens of the seven deadly sins. Arguing that Medicare’s faults are represented in each sin, the …

Malpractice Payouts And Malpractice Insurance: Evidence From Texas Closed Claims, 1990-2003, Charles Silver, Kathryn Zeiler, Bernard Black, David Hyman, William Sage

Faculty Scholarship

Background. This study is the first to quantify physicians' malpractice insurance limits. It also examines the connection between policy size and payments on claims, including the frequency of settlement at the policy limits and the frequency of out-of-pocket payments.

Methods. Statistical analyses using data collected by the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) covering all insured medical malpractice claims against physicians closed between 1990 and 2003 with payment of $25,000 or more (measured in 1988 dollars).

Results. Contrary to conventional wisdom, per-occurrence limits of $500,000 or less were as common as $1 million limits. Nominal policy size was stable over time, …

Patients As Consumers: Courts, Contracts, And The New Medical Marketplace, Mark A. Hall, Carl E. Schneider

Michigan Law Review

The persistent riddle of health-care policy is how to control the costs while improving the quality of care. The riddle's oncepromising answer-managed care-has been politically ravaged, and consumerist solutions are now winning favor This Article examines the legal condition of the patient-as-consumer in today's health-care market. It finds that insurers bargain with some success for rates for the people they insure. The uninsured, however, must contract to pay whatever a provider charges and then are regularly charged prices that are several times insurers'pricesa nd providers' actual costs. Perhaps because they do not understand the healthcare market, courts generally enforce these …

A Gift Worth Dying For?: Debating The Volitional Nature Of Suicide In The Law Of Personal Property, Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

Suicide poses difficult and foundational problems for the law. Those who most highly value personal autonomy, those who believe in the inviolability of human life, and those who remain uncommitted on end-of-life issues, all must settle challenging questions about suicide before advancing upon the more complex terrain of physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, and infanticide. And the way in which a society fashions legal responses to suicidal choices reveals much about the society's cultural commitments and legal assumptions.

The bodies of insurance law, tort, and health care law are also among those areas of the law in which lawmakers reserve special exceptions …

The Montreal Convention: Can Passengers Finally Recover For Mental Injuries?, Mckay Cunningham

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Since the 1920s, recovery for accidents suffered on international flights has been subject to the Warsaw Convention's limitation of "bodily injury." To address perceived inequities stemming from this limitation, some courts invoked a liberal interpretation of the phrase "bodily injury," and the resulting and fragmented judicial precedent threatened the treaty's goal of international uniformity. Although Warsaw's long-awaited replacement, the Montreal Convention, retains the "bodily injury" language, a close study of the treaty's history and, more importantly, the negotiations among the signatories' delegates suggests that the great majority of nations intended to broaden the allowable recovery beyond strict bodily injury and …

Law Triangle: Arbitrating International Reinsurance Disputes, J. L. Murphy

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The McCarran-Ferguson Act was enacted to preserve the longstanding prerogative of the States to regulate the insurance industry. States have acted in accordance with this statute to declare arbitration agreements in insurance contracts invalid. However, the Senate has since ratified the New York Convention and appended implementing legislation to the Federal Arbitration Act that obligates domestic courts to recognize arbitration agreements in all international contracts. In an odd convergence of authority, a functional conflict arises between these three bodies of law: the federal law says that state law controls in this area, even over other federal law that might incidentally …

Risk Governance And Deliberative Democracy In Health Care, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

I argue in this article that the concept of risk-centered governance is the best theoretical paradigm for understanding health law and the health care system. Over the past 20 years, an insurance-inflected discourse has migrated from the purely financial side of the health system into the heart of traditional medicine - the doctor-patient relationship. Rather than focus on doctrinal strands, I argue that scholars should analyze the law of health care as a set of governance practices organized around managing and allocating financial, as well as clinical, risk.

Over the same period, the body of law that structures most private …

Coverage Advice: The Missing Piece Of The Cumis Puzzle, Leo P. Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Insurance, Bradley S. Wolff, Stephen L. Cotter, Stephen M. Schatz

Mercer Law Review

The Georgia Supreme Court reviewed, and reversed, two cases featured prominently in last year's Insurance survey article, and it also held a key provision of tort reform preempted by federal law.

The Georgia Supreme Court reversed the decision in Ryder Integrated Logistics, Inc. v. BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc. and held that an agreement to name another as an additional insured could not be used to salvage an invalid indemnification clause in the parties' contract. The legislature amended Official Code of Georgia Annotated ("O.C.G.A.") section 13-8-2 to help avoid this type of litigation in the future.

However, both appellate courts continued …

Arieh Israel Insurance Company Ltd V. Kaplansky, Edna Arbel, Miriam Naor, Mishael Cheshin

Translated Opinions

Facts: The respondent, a lawyer, represented a company (hereinafter ‘the company’) that filed a claim against the appellant insurance company for fire loss. Before it received the insurance payout, the company asked the respondent to sign a document stating that he no longer represented them. It explained that the insurance company refused to make the payout for as long as the respondent represented the company. The respondent signed the document. When the company received the payout, it refused to pay the respondent the agreed fee for his services. The respondent sued the company for breach of contract, and the insurance …

Slayers And Soldiers: The Validity And Scope Of The Slayer's Rule Under The Family Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance Act, Rebecca Blasco

Washington Law Review

The "slayer's rule"—a common law doctrine—precludes a murderer from financially benefiting from the victim's death by denying him or her the right to proceeds from the victim's life insurance policy. Some jurisdictions have extended this rule to disqualify the slayer's exclusive family members from receiving the victim's insurance proceeds as beneficiaries. Exclusive family members are those either not related to the victim or related to the victim only by marriage. The slayer's rule applies to federal group life insurance policies, such as the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance Act (SGLI), which provides life insurance to servicemembers. Spouses and dependent children of …

The Tragedy Of The Human Commons, Ronen Avraham, K. A. D. Camara

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Offsetting Risks, Ariel Porat

Michigan Law Review

Under prevailing tort law, an injurer who must choose between Course of Action A, which creates a risk of 500 (there is a probability of .1 that a harm of 5000 will result), and Course of Action B, which creates a risk of 400 (there is a probability of.] that a harm of 4000 will result), and who negligently opts for the former will be held liable for the entire harm of 5000 that materializes. This full liability forces the injurer to pay damages that are five times higher than would be necessary to internalize the risk of 100 that …

Can The Australian Model Be Applied To U.S. Moral Rights Legislation?, Joan Pattarozzi

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note argues that the U.S. should adopt a more comprehensive framework for moral rights in copyright law, drawing inspiration from Australia's balanced approach, to better protect authors' personal and reputational interests while addressing concerns about market disruption and litigation. It highlights the U.S.'s current emphasis on economic rights, its limited implementation of moral rights under the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), and the potential for Australia's model to serve as a template for U.S. legislation.

Mississippi River Stories: Lessons From A Century Of Unnatural Disasters, Sandra B. Zellmer, Christine A. Klein

Faculty Law Review Articles

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the nation pondered how a relatively weak Category 3 storm could have destroyed an entire region. Few appreciated the extent to which a flawed federal water development policy transformed this apparently natural disaster into a "manmade" disaster; fewer still appreciated how the disaster was the predictable, and indeed predicted, sequel to almost a century of similar disasters. This Article focuses upon three such stories: the Great Flood of 1927, the Midwest Flood of 1993, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005. Taken together, the stories reveal important lessons, including the inadequacy of engineered flood …