Insured Contracts: When the Carrier Gets It Wrong
Insured Contract Coverage, Excess Judgments, and Extra-Contractual Exposure The first two installments in this series were about coverage that exists. Part One located the insured contract provision in the Commercial General Liability (“CGL”), commercial…
Process Is Proof: Claims-Handling Discovery in Missouri First-Party UM/UIM Cases
Why the insurer’s “we just valued it differently” defense rarely survives a record built piece by piece. The most effective tactic the defense has in a first-party uninsured or underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) case is not about the wreck or the medicine.…
When the Carrier Breaches First: Answering Cooperation and Consent Defenses
The insured’s refusal to accept a belated defense is not non-cooperation — it is the privileged consequence of the insurer’s first material breach. Introduction A litany of denials and affirmative defenses commonly follows the filing of an insurance…
Five Misconceptions About Missouri Insurance Law That Cost Practitioners Cases
Introduction Insurance coverage litigation in Missouri is governed by a body of statutory and common law that is, in its broad outlines, familiar to most civil practitioners. The duty to defend, the duty to indemnify, the vexatious refusal statute, the…
Qureshi v. American Family: Building a Missouri Vexatious Refusal Case
How an inadequate claims investigation, a lowball settlement offer, and an insurer’s strategic refusal to answer deposition questions combined to sustain a jury verdict for vexatious refusal under § 375.420 RSMo Missouri Injury & Insurance…
The Missouri Bad Faith Timeline: From Tender to Excess Judgment
A chronological practitioner’s guide to how a Missouri bad faith failure to settle case develops — the elements, the key decision points, what the insurer must do at each stage, and what happens when it does not Missouri Injury & Insurance…
Artificial Intelligence and Insurance Policy Interpretation: What the Eleventh Circuit Opened, What the Scholars Are Fighting About, and What Missouri Practitioners Need to Know
How AI tools are already reshaping coverage analysis — and why the legal profession’s debate over their reliability matters for every Missouri insurance litigator Missouri Injury & Insurance…
The Insurer as Litigant: How Lyda v. Allstate Rewrites the Rules of the Tort Case—and at What Cost to Insureds
Lyda v. Allstate, insurer intervention, and the reshaping of § 537.065 litigation in Missouri. Missouri Injury & Insurance Law | missouriinjuryandinsurancelaw.com I. The Issue Lyda v. Allstate is likely the most…
When Is the Insurer Bound? Judgments, Settlements, Arbitration Awards, and Collateral Estoppel in Missouri Coverage Litigation With No 537.065 Agreement
Gulf Insurance, Schmitz, HIAR Holding, and the critical statutory barof § 435.415 RSMo — what an insurer may and may not be required to accept Missouri Injury & Insurance Law | missouriinjuryandinsurancelaw.com Introduction When…
Proving the Insurer’s Breach of Fiduciary Duty in Missouri: A Discovery and Deposition Practice Guide
Who to depose, what to demand, and how to build the record that proves bad faith from the inside out Missouri Injury & Insurance Law | missouriinjuryandinsurancelaw.com Missouri Injury & Insurance…