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April 15, 2026
LOS ANGELES — No coverage is owed to an insured for a power outage stemming from water leaking into a vault where electrical equipment is stored because the all-risk policy’s exclusion for repeated or continuous water leakage applies as a bar to coverage, the Second District California Court of Appeal said in affirming a trial court’s judgment.
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April 15, 2026
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — An insured’s bad faith claim alleged against an auto insurer is dismissed without prejudice, a Pennsylvania federal judge said April 14 after determining that the insured failed to offer evidence in support of her argument that the insurer’s $15,000 settlement offer was unreasonable.
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April 15, 2026
SCRANTON, Pa. — An insured’s claims for statutory bad faith and fraud and misrepresentation must be dismissed for a second time because the insured failed to allege sufficient facts in support of a claim for bad faith under Pennsylvania law and failed to show that he justifiably relied on any misrepresentation made by his auto insurer, a Pennsylvania federal judge said in dismissing the claims without prejudice.
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April 15, 2026
MIAMI — A Florida federal jury reached a verdict in favor of a law firm as to its breach of implied contract claim in its lawsuit seeking payment from an excess directors and officers liability insurer for its legal representation of an insured in underlying criminal and civil lawsuits but ruled against the law firm as to its promissory estoppel claim.
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April 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A district court properly determined that an insured’s breach of contract and bad faith claims against a homeowners insurer fail because it is clear that the insured failed to file suit within the policy’s one-year suit limitations provision, a panel of the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in affirming the lower court’s judgment.
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April 14, 2026
FORT WORTH, Texas — A church insured filed a notice indicating that it is appealing a Texas federal court’s final judgment dismissing with prejudice its claims against its commercial property insurer for breach of contract, bad faith, unfair or deceptive acts or trade practices and violations of the Texas Prompt Payment Claims Act in a coverage dispute over hailstorm damage.
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April 14, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del.— An insurer filed an application for certification of interlocutory appeal of a Delaware court’s grant of partial summary judgment in favor of a technology company insured in its breach of contract and bad faith lawsuit seeking coverage for an underlying securities class action and a Securities Exchange Commission lawsuit arising from a merger between a privately held company and a special purpose acquisition company, challenging the lower court’s holding that its interpretation of the policy’s “public offering” exclusion blurs the line between parent and subsidiary and “would undermine the narrow function of insurance exclusions.”
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April 13, 2026
LAS VEGAS — A Nevada federal magistrate judge dismissed without prejudice a bad faith suit filed against an insurer, finding that dismissal is appropriate because the plaintiffs failed to file a report by the agreed-upon April 1 deadline regarding the insurer’s liquidation proceeding in Kansas.
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April 09, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of foreign and domestic insurers filed an application asking the U.S. Supreme Court for an extension of the deadline for filing their petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling barring arbitration of a hurricane damage policy dispute and denying the applicability of equitable estoppel under state law based on a new Louisiana Supreme Court ruling barring arbitration of such disputes.
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April 09, 2026
NEW YORK — Arguing that a residual disability provision used to terminate his benefits at age 65 is ambiguous and that he “plausibly alleged a reasonable alternative reading of the Policies” under which he would be entitled to lifetime benefits, a dentist filed an opening brief urging the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reverse dismissal of a suit in which he asserted claims for breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
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April 08, 2026
OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal magistrate judge in California denied an insurer and claims administrator’s motion to dismiss an insured’s breach of contract and bad faith claims in her lawsuit seeking flood coverage for damage to her San Anselmo, Calif., home caused by a rainstorm, but granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the insured’s claims for unfair competition, intentional misrepresentation, punitive damages, restitution, disgorgement and injunctive relief.
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April 07, 2026
BATON ROUGE, La. — A federal judge in Louisiana granted summary judgment in favor of an insurer in a case brought against it by its contractor insured after it denied coverage for a claim related to damage to the copper tubes of a condenser the insured was working on, finding that at least two policy exclusions precluded coverage.
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April 07, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — An insured’s breach of contract and bad faith suit filed against its environmental liability insurer after the insurer denied coverage for lost rental income incurred as a result of lead and asbestos abatement work cannot proceed because the insured failed to file suit within the applicable four-year statute of limitations, a California federal judge said in granting the insurer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.
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April 06, 2026
TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida federal judge denied an auto insurer’s motion for summary judgment after determining that while it’s a “very close call” as to whether the insurer acted reasonably or in bad faith in handling a claim against its insured, a reasonable jury could find that the insurer acted in bad faith by failing to inform its insured of a settlement offer and by failing to provide the claimant with information necessary to settle a bodily injury claim.
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April 06, 2026
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A South Dakota federal judge granted an auto insurer’s motion for partial summary judgment on its insureds’ bad faith claims after determining that the insurer’s decision to increase its reserves for the insureds’ claims and the insurer’s valuation of the insureds’ noneconomic damages are not evidence that the insurer acted unreasonably.
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April 03, 2026
SAN ANTONIO — A Texas federal judge ruled, in denying a motion to compel appraisal, that an insurer’s request for an appraisal following unsuccessful mediation in a dispute with an elderly woman over a water damage claim was “unreasonably delayed” given that it was filed 22 months after the woman filed her claim and 10 months after she filed a federal lawsuit alleging breach of contract, bad faith, violations of the state insurance code and more.
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April 02, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana granted a write-your-own insurer’s unopposed motion for summary judgment seeking dismissal of an insured’s breach of contract and bad faith lawsuit, holding that the insured’s failure to comply with the Standard Flood Insurance Policy’s mandatory requirements “dooms” the insured’s supplemental claim for flood damage caused by Hurricane Irma.
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April 02, 2026
CHICAGO — An Illinois appellate court affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of an insurer’s suit seeking a declaration that it did not owe coverage beyond the $25,000 policy limits to its insured, who was involved in an auto accident, ruling that the lower court was correct in finding that the insurer’s alleged bad faith liability regarding past conduct, which relates to a separate bad faith suit, “was more properly considered in the bad faith action.”
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April 02, 2026
SEATTLE — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of an auto insurer after determining that the insurer did not breach its contract or act in bad faith because it attempted to settle with the claimants who were injured in an auto accident caused by an insured.
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April 02, 2026
TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida federal judge deferred ruling on an auto insurer’s motion for summary judgment and stayed the third-party claimant’s bad faith suit against the insurer after determining that the third-party claimant must notify the trustee of the insured’s bankruptcy estate of the bad faith claim and allow the trustee to determine whether the bad faith claim will be pursued.
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March 31, 2026
HOUSTON — An additional insured is not entitled to coverage for business interruption losses caused by quarantine orders issued in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic because the commercial property policy’s pollution and contamination exclusion bars coverage, the 14th Texas Court of Appeals said March 31 in affirming a trial court’s ruling in favor of the insurer on breach of contract and extracontractual claims.
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March 31, 2026
NEW YORK — A contractor’s pollution liability insurer has no duty to provide coverage for an underlying asbestos contamination damages suit filed against an insured because the contamination occurred at a subcontractor’s facility and is therefore barred by the policy’s owned property exclusion, a New York justice said in granting the insurer’s motion for summary judgment on the insured’s breach of contract and bad faith claims.
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March 27, 2026
DALLAS — The insurer and the insured in a federal lawsuit alleging bad faith, breach of contract and other claims in a dispute over whether damage to the roofs of two Texas buildings was caused by a 2021 hailstorm agreed in a March 26 notice “to have a magistrate judge conduct a settlement conference or mediation” for the case, taking up a judge’s offer that was included in an opinion denying a motion for summary judgment and motions to exclude and strike expert opinions and testimony.
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March 27, 2026
PHOENIX — An Arizona federal judge awarded $60,605 in attorney fees to a life insurer in a declaratory judgment suit seeking to void a $750,000 life insurance policy after the insurer paid death benefits to the beneficiary, the deceased insured’s husband, who was later convicted of her murder, finding that the husband had no just defense for failure to respond to the complaint and while the lodestar method to calculate attorney fees was appropriate, the attorney fee request was reduced by the hours of clerical work.
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March 27, 2026
AUSTIN, Texas — A trial court properly granted summary judgment in favor of an insurer on claims alleging that the insurer violated the Texas Insurance Code by denying the insured’s theft claim in bad faith because the insurer met its burden of showing that a reasonable coverage dispute existed; however, the trial court improperly granted the insurer’s motion on the insured’s breach of contract claim because the value of the insured’s stolen items was not an essential element of the breach of contract claim, the Third District Texas Court of Appeals said March 26.