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EEOC Investigations Requires That Employers Notify Insurance Carrier

EEOC Investigations Requires That Employers Notify Insurance Carrier
Source: Adjunct Law Prof Blog; http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/adjunctprofs/
Reproduced with permission. Copyright © 2009, Mitchell H. Rubinstein, Esq., Adjunct Professor of Law, St. Johns Law School and New York Law School, All rights reserved.

As most practicing labor lawyers know, employers often carry discrimination insurance. Often times, policies require that the carrier be notified even before a formal lawsuit is filed. The failure to notify the carrier can be fatal to any claim for insurance as the D.C. Circuit recently recognized in American Centr v. Federal Ins. Co., ___F.3d___(D.C. Cir. Dec. 5, 2008).

In this case, the insurer denied coverage because it was only notified after the suit was filed. The insurance carrier was required to be notified when the employee filed charges with the EEOC.

This was a relatively easy case for the court. The policy defined a claim as a "formal administrative or regulatory proceeding" and the court found that EEOC proceedings were formal.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on January 16, 2009 (boomark / email).