Insurance Law Commons^™

Newsroom: Undocumented Licenses, Safer Roads 01-05-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Engaging Health Insurers In The War On Prescription Painkillers, Valarie K. Blake

Scholarly Works

While insurers have both the power and the motivation to curb the practice of harmful opioid prescribing, they may go about it in ways that could be counter-productive to larger public health goals. After all, insurers have historically discriminated against addiction like any other condition that leads to costly healthcare consumption. In the past, insurers have avoided enrolling addicted insureds and have limited rehabilitation services. To address this epidemic, insurers might engage in ways that could harm third parties. For example, to the extent they are permitted, insurers might avoid addicted enrollees altogether, or might limit coverage of addiction treatments …

Rethinking The Americans With Disabilities Act’S Insurance Safe Harbor, Valarie K. Blake

Scholarly Works

Despite the importance of access to healthcare for the disabled, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has made little inroads in reducing disability-based discrimination by health insurers in the United States. One reason is undoubtedly the ADA’s insurance safe harbor, which explicitly permits insurers to discriminate on the basis of disability in health insurance so long as the differential treatment is supported by actuarial data and is not just intended to disadvantage the disabled. While the safe harbor’s harms are somewhat limited by the advent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they are not entirely neutralized. This article argues that …

Department Of Insurance, J. D. Fellmeth

California Regulatory Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Agreeing In The Shadow Of The Policy: How Corporate Insurance Policies Impact The Resolution Of Governmental Investigations Into Corporate Crime, Beth Olsen

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Remedies For Breach Of The Pre-Contract Duty Of Disclosure In Chinese Insurance Law, Zhen Jing

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Wearables And Personal Health Data: Putting A Premium On Your Privacy, Alexandra Troiano

Brooklyn Law Review

Recently, insurance companies have gained greater insight into their policyholders’ health habits by incentivizing them to take steps towards a healthier lifestyle through the use of wearable devices. This note addresses the recent trend of insurance companies that offer discounts to policyholders who use Fitbits, or other wearable wristbands, to track and report health information. At first glance, this idea seems like a win-win for insurance companies and policyholders–insurance companies can reduce risk by encouraging healthier habits for their policyholders, and policyholders receive discounts on their health insurance. Despite this synergy, however, this type of program threatens personal privacy, particularly …

Extra-Contractual Liability In The Restatement Of The Law, Liability Insurance: Breach Of The Duty To Settle Or Bad Faith?, Jeffrey E. Thomas

Faculty Works

This paper focuses on the Restatement’s treatment of an insurer’s duty to settle and the duty of an insurer to act in good faith in handling liability claims. The duty to settle is framed as an objective “duty to the insured to make reasonable settlement decisions.” At the same time, however, a separate claim is retained for an insurer’s “bad faith” breach of its duties (including the duty to settle). Further, a subjective element is adopted for the bad faith standard. To be liable for “bad faith,” an insurer must act “without a reasonable basis for its conduct” and must …

Fracking Health Care: How To Safely De-Medicalize America And Recover Trapped Value For Its People, William M. Sage

Faculty Scholarship

The wealth trapped within American health care is simultaneously a tragedy and a miracle. It is a tragedy because stagnating wages, widening disparities in income, ballooning deficits, and stunted investments in education and social services make such medical profligacy shameful. It is a miracle because it still exists, whereas other U.S. economic resources of similar magnitude have already been dissipated by global market forces without addressing any of the aforementioned failings – indeed, sometimes having contributed to them. It therefore can be released and used.

It is time to “frack the health care system” and innovate the de-medicalization of America. …

An Analytic "Gap": The Perils Of Relentless Enforcement Of Payment-By-Underlying-Insurer-Only Language In Excess Insurance Policies, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Excess liability insurance, as the phrase implies, sits atop primary insurance or a lower layer of excess insurance and is required to cover only claims that are above the policy's "underlying limit" and reach the "attachment point" of the excess policy in question. Historically, the law was largely indifferent to whether the underlying limit was exhausted by full payment from the underlying insurer or by other means such as payment by the policyholder due to an underlying insurer's insolvency or because the policyholder and underlying insurer had compromised a coverage dispute for less than 100 percent coverage by the underlying …

The Other "Personal Injury": Coverage B Of The Cgl Policy, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

E/Insuring The Marijuana Industry, Francis J. Mootz Iii

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Coverage In Transition: Considerations When Expanding Employer-Provided Health Coverage To Lgbti Employees And Beneficiaries, 24 Cardozo J. Equal Rts. & Soc. Just. 3 (2017), Kathryn J. Kennedy

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

The rights of transgender individuals has been in the headlines during 2017 - ranging from President Trump's tweet to announce a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the military due to the "tremendous medical costs" to a nationwide injunction imposed by a federal district court on the HHS regulations that prohibit health-care discrimination against transgender individuals under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). There are three important reasons why transgender rights are in the news. First, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, designed to promote the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, scores employers in its Corporate Equality …

E/Insuring The Marijuana Industry, Francis J. Mootz Iii

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Remedying Stigma-Driven Health Disparities In Sexual Minorities, Valarie K. Blake

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Consumer Financial Protection In Health Care, Erin C. Fuse Brown

Faculty Publications By Year

There are inadequate consumer protections from harmful medical billing practices that result in unavoidable, unexpected, and often financially devastating medical bills. The problem stems from the increasing costs shifting to patients in American health care and the inordinate complexity that makes health care transactions nearly impossible for consumers to navigate. A particularly outrageous example is the phenomenon of surprise medical bills, which refers to unanticipated and involuntary out-of-network bills in emergencies or from out-of-network providers at in-network facilities. Other damaging medical billing practices include the opaque and à la carte nature of medical bills, epitomized by added “facility fees,” as …

Murder For Life Insurance Money: Protecting The Children, Johnny C. Chriscoe

Scholarly Works

Children are being murdered for life insurance proceeds.

Of course, if a beneficiary murders a child for the recovery of life insurance money and if he is apprehended, he will surely face numerous legal consequences. He will not recover the insurance money, he will be prosecuted and likely sentenced to life imprisonment or execution, he may be sued for the wrongful death of the child and he may be prosecuted for insurance fraud. However, all of these legal responses are triggered by the death of the child and, therefore, do not serve to protect the child from being murdered in …

Regulation By Government-Sponsored Reinsurance In Catastrophe Management, Qihao He

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Jurisprudential Survey Of The Tort Of Spoliation Of Evidence: Resolving Third-Party Insurance Company Automobile Spoliation Claims, Steven Plitt, Jordan R. Plitt

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Mutually Assured Protection Among Large U.S. Law Firms, Tom Baker, Rick Swedloff

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.