Benefits & ERISA Law

Climate Change Litigation and Insurance Coverage

I have posted in the past about how everything eventually makes its way through the insurance industry, in terms of any types of new lawsuits or liability theories, and as this article makes clear, litigation over climate change will be no different. The suits are coming, and while their viability is yet to be determined, they will pose challenges for the insurance industry, because the development of theories of liability in this area will eventually lead to demands for insurance carriers to cover the defense costs or liabilities arising from those theories, just as occurred with asbestos and pollution, and almost certainly with the same types of pitched battles over the existence of coverage as occurred in those areas. This will raise a whole host of issues for carriers that will mimic the types of issues that played out with regard to the large scale - and often unanticipated - exposure posed by environmental litigation and asbestos, only on a broader and probably even more complicated level. Just think, for instance, about how difficult it will be to develop exclusions against climate change lawsuits, if that is the direction insurers elect to go, that are broad enough to encompass the as yet unknown range of legal theories, while still being concise enough in their wording to avoid being declared ambiguous.

Full post as published by Boston ERISA Law Blog on January 27, 2010 (boomark / email).