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Paid “Dark Clouds on the Horizon” The Impact of Nuclear Verdicts on Canadian liability insurance

June 8, 2020 AXA XL

It is widely acknowledged that the United States has a more litigious environment than Canada.  However, the rise of recent jury awards in the United States, dubbed “nuclear verdicts”, will have a greater impact on Canadian companies that operate in

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How liability insurers will react to military report on long-term care homes

June 2, 2020 by Greg Meckbach

A recently military report on some Canadian long-term care facilities will change the way liability coverage is underwritten and could even discourage some insurers from staying in the market, a managing general agent suggests. “I think you will probably see

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Contactless payment in a pandemic: There’s an app for that

May 29, 2020 by David Gambrill

Retail clients of brokers and insurers can now prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus by taking advantage of digital, contact-free payment methods now available on mobile apps. Increasingly, businesses will have to operate within the health and safety guidelines

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Why noxious gas release claims can be costly

May 26, 2020 by Greg Meckbach

Toxic gas leaks may not happen often in Canada but if it happens to your client, it can result in a large third-party liability claim, a managing general agent warns. A styrene gas leak from an LG Polymers in India

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How liability coverage limits determined what this bar owed in commercial host lawsuit

May 25, 2020 by Greg Meckbach

A bar found 20% liable for an impaired driving accident has to pay two-thirds of the plaintiff’s legal costs and wound up paying double for damages what the at-fault motorist paid. Hummel v. Jantzi, released May 14 by the Ontario

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Why it’s hard to determine liability when a plaintiff catches coronavirus in nursing home

May 1, 2020 by Greg Meckbach

Liability insurers and courts could be entering uncharted legal territory when dealing with class-action lawsuits against nursing homes or long-term care homes in which residents have become sick and died from the coronavirus. In some cases, a question before a

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Liability claims that could arise from the pandemic

April 22, 2020 by Greg Meckbach

One result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will be liability claims against company boards, property and casualty industry watchers predict. “I think we will see litigation coming out of this,” Shara Roy, a partner with law firm Lenczner Slaght Royce

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This type of claim should dry up in Ontario with COVID-19

March 27, 2020 by Greg Meckbach

With the Ontario government ordering the closure of bars and nightclubs, this should eliminate – temporarily – one category of commercial liability claim. “I don’t think claims will be launched against commercial hosts at this time,” said Mouna Hanna, an

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How D&O claims could arise from COVID-19

March 17, 2020 by Greg Meckbach

If your clients are accused of failing to warn shareholders of the impact of COVID-19, their directors and officers could have liability exposure, experts from Marsh suggest. Generally speaking, directors and officers tend to have the same liability exposure as

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How liability insurance responds (or not) to COVID-19

March 16, 2020 by Greg Meckbach

If your clients are sued as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, don’t assume they will be covered by a commercial general liability policy. General liability policies have exclusions; and for COVID-19, the most relevant exclusion is probably pollution, suggested

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Why this ski resort’s waiver argument doesn’t cut it with appeal court

March 10, 2020 by Greg Meckbach

A British Columbia judge should not have used a North Vancouver ski resort’s warning notices to throw a personal injury lawsuit out of court, the province’s appeal court found in a ruling released March 4. In Apps v. Grouse Mountain

News Legal

Why this religious organization wants to appeal sexual abuse lawsuit

March 5, 2020 by Greg Meckbach

A corporate defendant found vicariously liable in a multi-million-dollar sexual abuse lawsuit wants to go to the Supreme Court of Canada and seek a new jury trial, a lawyer in MacLeod v. Marshall told Canadian Underwriter Wednesday. In 2018, a