Insurance Law Commons^™

The Martha Wright-Reed Act: How The Fcc Took One Step Forward For Communication Equality For Deaf Individuals In Correctional Facilities And How It Could Be Expanded, Ashley Seebold

Seattle University Law Review

For decades, phone companies preyed on incarcerated individuals and their loved ones due to the lack of regulation of jail phone calls.2 In 2021, the average cost of a fifteen-minute jail phone call was about $3.3 In 2022, the average cost rose to $5.74, while some individuals faced an extreme charge of $24.82 for the same amount of time.4 In the early 2000s, consumer advocate and concerned grandmother Martha Wright-Reed called upon the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fix the imbalance so she could speak to her incarcerated grandson.5 Eventually, in 2023, the FCC answered her call to action and …

Avoiding Pandora’S Box: Why Federal Nondiscrimination Statutes Do Not Prohibit Health Insurance Coverage Exclusions Of Sex-Rejecting Procedures, Rachel N. Morrison

Catholic University Law Review

There is increasing litigation over whether employer-provided health insurance and state Medicaid plans can exclude coverage of procedures for “gender transitions.” Plaintiffs claim that gender-transition coverage exclusions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and federal nondiscrimination statutes. While Fourteenth Amendment claims should be foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s holding in Geduldig v. Aiello, nondiscrimination claims require a separate analysis.

This article shows the proper analysis for whether coverage exclusions of transition procedures violate federal nondiscrimination statutes. Looking to the history of coverage exclusion claims, Part I traces sex and pregnancy discrimination claims challenging coverage exclusions of …

The Tiger Trap Of Claims-Made-And-Reported Insurance Policies, Vonda Mallicoat Laughlin

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Insurance policies contain notification requirements. A typical requirement is that notice be provided of a claim, or of an incident likely to lead to a claim, promptly or within a certain number of days of the occurrence. A claims-made-and-reported policy generally has this type of notification requirement but further requires that notice of a claim be provided within the coverage dates of the policy or within a set number of days following the policy’s expiration date. Over the years, the claims-made-and-reported form has reached popularity in regard to certain types of liability coverage. As exemplified by the case of President …

Diverging Views On Class Certification In The Insurance Industry: Uniform Valuation Methods For Totaled Vehicles, Celine Makhani

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This comment explores the legal challenges surrounding how insurance companies calculate the "actual cash value" of totaled vehicles . The author focuses on the controversial use of "negotiation adjustments"—deductions insurers apply based on the assumption that buyers typically negotiate car prices downward—which policyholders argue systematically undervalues their claims. The central conflict of the article is a significant circuit split: while the Ninth Circuit in Jama v. State Farm recently allowed these claims to proceed as class actions, the Fifth Circuit in Sampson v. USAA reached the opposite conclusion, requiring individual proof of harm for each policyholder . Makhani analyzes these …

Private Coverage, Public Risk: The Role Of Cyber Insurance In National Security Governance, Deborah L. Johnson

Faculty Publications

This Article explores the growing yet underexamined role of the commercial cyber insurance market in shaping the United States' approach to cybersecurity readiness. It argues that, as cyber threats against U.S. critical infrastructure and essential services increase, commercial cyber insurance has quietly come to function as a de facto governance tool in national cybersecurity. In hospitals, water and energy systems, and other public-facing sectors, policy language, underwriting questionnaires, and post-breach claims practices help define what counts as "reasonable" security, influence how organizations plan for and respond to incidents, and affect the pace and scope of recovery after an attack. Yet …

Uncovering Settlements: Problems, Opportunities And Solutions For Settling Liability Cases In Which Insurance Coverage Is In Dispute, Marialuisa Gallozzi, Jodi Mcdougall, James Murray, Catalina Sugayan

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Artificial Intelligence In The Insurance Industry And Bad Faith Risk, Mary E. Borja, Edward J. Currie Jr., Lorelie Masters

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

An Ethics Conundrum: What Am I? Coverage Counsel Or Claim Investigator Or Both?, Neil B. Posner

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

What Is The Availability Of Insurance Coverage For Claims Of Sexual Misconduct And Abuse?, Paul Walker-Bright, Karen Dixon, Michael Hamilton, Seth Row

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Liability Insurer’S Duty To Defend “Suits”, Douglas R. Richmond

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Tel-Ai-Matic Privacy, Anya E.R. Prince

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

Vehicles collect a staggering amount of data from drivers and passengers for various reasons. Automobiles increasingly include sensors and technology to improve safety and driver convenience. But auto insurers also find this trove of consumer data useful for pricing through telematics. An ever-growing number of data points can be fed into artificial intelligence (AI) systems to identify correlations with driving risk. Yet the data can also reveal sensitive information related to health and protected traits. Lawmakers, regulators, and plaintiffs are increasingly scrutinizing the privacy practices of automakers and data brokers. Growing scrutiny of automakers' practices necessarily draws attention to the …

Governing Algorithmic Insurance: Reconciling The Eu Ai Act With Insurance-Specific Regulation, Pierpaolo Marano, Shu Li

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the insurance industry, driving automation in underwriting, claims handling, and risk assessment. These technological developments offer enhanced efficiency and innovation, but they also raise complex legal questions regarding transparency, fairness, bias, and accountability. Within the European Union, existing regulatory frameworks—chiefly Solvency II and the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD)—provide prudential and conduct-of-business safeguards but were not designed with algorithmic systems in mind. In response to emerging challenges, the EU adopted the Artificial Intelligence Act in 2024, establishing a horizontal, risk-based legal framework applicable across all sectors, including insurance. This article provides an EU-focused legal analysis of …

Insurability And Liability For Ai-Caused Harms, Mark A. Geistfeld

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

The opacity of AI decision-making has led many tort scholars to conclude that ordinarily it will be infeasible to prove negligence or defect-based forms of products liability for AI-caused harms. According to mainstream tort theory, this evidentiary hurdle justifies strict enterprise liability for commercial AI distributors. Fully internalizing injury costs within these business enterprises adequately incentivizes them to adopt reasonably safe practices while relying on their liability insurance policies to efficiently and fairly compensate accident victims.

Mainstream theory, however, decisively biases the analysis in favor of strict enterprise liability by not accounting for how the expansion of liability would substantially …

Insurance And The Law Of Artificial Intelligence, Kenneth S. Abraham, Catherine M. Sharkey

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

This Essay predicts that concerns about the insurability and insurance of AI liability will prove to be either exaggerated or unwarranted as the future unfolds. AI liability is already covered by a number of existing forms of “silent” liability insurance. We also predict the growth of “affirmative” AI insurance that expressly covers specified AI losses. There are already tiny bits of such insurance. That is how cyber insurance began, and it is now a thriving, $16.6 billion business in the U.S. alone. We believe that affirmative AI insurance will develop in a similar fashion, and that courts should anticipate such …

Federal Appeals Court Rules West Virginia Medicaid Coverage Exclusion Of ‘Sex-Change’ Surgery Is Legal, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Crashing Out: Documentary Screening And Q&A, Cardozo Fame Center, Cardozo Entertainment Law Society, Cardozo Outlaw, Barbara Kolsun, Mattt Nadel

2025–2026 Flyers

At the height of the AIDS crisis, many queer people sold their life insurance policies to investors for quick cash. This documentary charts the rise and fall of the "gay-death-profiteering" industry that grew out of their desperation.

Against The Drafter: An Empirical And Theoretical Analysis Of The Doctrine Of Contra Proferentem, Farshad Ghodoosi, Tal Kastner

Fordham Law Review

Contra proferentem, the enduring maxim that directs courts to interpret an ambiguity in a contract against its drafter, appears simple on its face. Although it might be best known as a fundamental principle of insurance law, contra proferentem figures in courts’ interpretation of a range of contract types. As an interpretive rule of thumb that parties can easily override with a simple contract provision, the doctrine and its boilerplate antidote seem to offer a straightforward means to facilitate private ordering—a central goal of contract law.

However, neither courts’ application of the doctrine in case law nor contract drafters’ treatment …

Outbound Investment Restrictions And International Law’S Challenge, Harlan Grant Cohen

Seattle University Law Review

The Outbound Investment Rule, restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors, has largely been portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the …

Navigating Compliance In A Geopolitical Era: The Case Of Chinese Multinationals In The United States, Ji Li

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines how Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) approach compliance in the United States amid deepening geo-political rivalry and intensified regulatory scrutiny. Drawing on original survey data, this Article maps variations in compliance structures, staffing, and governance mechanisms across Chinese firms and identifies key determinants such as industry-specific regulatory intensity, listing status, and organizational imprinting from headquarters. The analysis employs a dual institutional framework to explain how compliance systems emerge from the interplay between host-state regulatory demands and home-state institutional legacies, producing hybrid structures that blend local adaptation with headquarters-driven replication. Findings reveal that while certain compliance features—such as committee …

The Field Of International Business Transactions Law, Kathleen Claussen

Seattle University Law Review

This Article studies the evolution of the scholarly subfield referred to as the law of “international business transactions” (IBT). It reviews data on academic articles, courses, textbooks and other signifiers of the growth of this research area. Beginning around 1960, scholars began to use the term “international business transactions” and by the 1980s, several law schools were offering a course by that title. A handful of dedicated textbooks soon followed. These data reflect a gradual increase in research on the topic of IBT, particularly in the United States, but also considerable diversity of subject matters covered by those works. The …