Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

An eye-popping settlement in Georgia serves as a cautionary tale for insurers who refuse to provide a straight answer when responding to a demand for policy limits and as a lesson for insureds dealing with recalcitrant insurers: Don’t just take “no” for an answer.

Hunton and Williams LLP has published its 2016 Retail Industry Year in Review.  The Review discusses the key legal and regulatory developments that affected the retail industry last year.  In the Review, Hunton insurance coverage attorneys Syed Ahmad, Mike Levine and Jenn White discuss the lessons learned from insurance coverage cases that promise to have a lasting impact on retail cyber security and product contamination insurance.  As they explain, “Last year’s decisions are critical reminders that having the right insurance is key, and even unintentional missteps can ...

On October 27, 2016, my colleague, Michael S. Levine, was quoted in Business Insurance concerning the recent decision in Camp’s Grocery Inc. v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., which he and I discussed on October 26, 2016 on the Hunton & Williams LLP Insurance Recovery Blog.  In Camp’s, the court refused to find coverage under legacy property and liability policies for third-party liabilities arising from the hacking of a point-of-sale network and the resulting breach of bank card and other data.  Mike's comments on the risk of relying on legacy coverage for cyber protection and the ...

As reported in the Hunton Retail Law Resource blog, a federal judge in Alabama ruled Tuesday that a grocer could not rely on its legacy business insurance policies – including an "electronic data" coverage extension – to protect against third-party claims after customer data was compromised by a point-of-sale cyberattack. The decision in Camp's Grocery, Inc. v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company is yet another reminder to policyholders to ensure that their cyber security programs include both adequate cyber security safeguards and appropriate first-party and third-party cyber/crime insurance coverages. Failure to maintain either may jeopardize coverage for resulting cyber losses.

Last month, I wrote about State Farm's "Dirty Little Secret." After a non-jury trial, Florida's Second Judicial Circuit (Leon County) declared that data submitted by State Farm Florida Insurance Company ("State Farm") to Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation ("OIR"), as required by Fla. Stat. 624.424(10), constituted a "trade secret" under Florida law. The Circuit Court released its written opinion on May 2, 2016.

On March 30, 2016, Florida’s Second Judicial Circuit (Leon County) declared that the personal and commercial residential policy data and report submitted by State Farm Florida Insurance Company (“State Farm”) to Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation (“OIR”) constitute trade secrets under Florida law and are thus immune from public disclosure under Florida’s Public Records Act. Beginning in the first quarter of 2014, State Farm began filing its Quarterly and Supplemental Reporting System (“QUASR”) reports with “trade secret” designation. On May 15, 2014, State Farm filed a declaratory action in Florida’s Second Judicial Circuit in and for Leon County, requesting that the Court declare: (1) State Farm’s QUASR data and report are trade secretes under 812.081 and 688.022, Fla. Stat.; and (2) that State Farm’s QUASR data and report are exempt from public disclosure under Florida’s Public Records Act because they are trade secret.