2006, 2007, 2008 - Looking Back Over The Decade
As we round out review of what happened over the past decade in the insurance coverage world, I agree with Mike’s inventory as it pertains to California. (If you are interested in year by year summaries of California cases, please respond to this blog or send me an email as we collected those cases.) I would add one notable case to the decade highlights. There is little appellate authority in the area of "number of occurrences" and thus this decision was very important.
In London Market Insurers v. Truck Insurance Exchange (2007) 146 Cal.App.4th 648, the California appellate court held that the policy language before it and common sense led to the conclusion that all of the asbestos claims were not one occurrence. This case had a significant impact on not only the primary insurers’ obligations in that particular case (because there were no aggregate limits in many of the primary policies), but on many pending asbestos coverage cases.
All decade long people pondered what would be the next asbestos, when it turns out that asbestos is the next asbestos. . . Asbestos claims continue to cost companies and insurers millions, . . . make that billions of dollars, and the litigation is not only in the defense of the claims, but in the coverage litigation as insurers and insureds sort out who owes what to whom.
