Frye v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co.

Federal 7th Circuit Court
Civil Court
Insurance
Citation
Case Number: 
No. 16-1677
Decision Date: 
January 3, 2017
Federal District: 
N.D. Ind., South Bend Div.
Holding: 
Reversed and remanded

Dist. Ct. erred in granting defendant-insurance company’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s action seeking additional payments from defendant pursuant to under-insured (UIM) provisions of defendant's $1 million commercial automobile policy, as well as defendant’s $5 million commercial umbrella policy that had been issued to plaintiff’s employer, where plaintiff sought said proceeds for injuries sustained in automobile accident incurred during plaintiff’s employment. While defendant paid plaintiff $900,000 under commercial automobile policy and $382,314.21 under umbrella policy (i.e. $1 million in UIM coverage less $617,685.79 that plaintiff had received in net workers’ compensation benefits), plaintiff was entitled to seek more insurance proceeds from umbrella policy, since Indiana statute required defendant to provide in its umbrella policy UIM coverage in amount equal to policy’s general liability limit of $5 million and not some lesser amount, where, as here, defendant had provided UIM coverage in umbrella policy. Fact that defendant was not required by statute to provide any UIM benefits in its umbrella policy did not require different result. Moreover, defendant was not entitled to subtract plaintiff’s receipt of workers’ compensation benefits from proceeds of umbrella policy since terms of said policy only required offset of workers’ compensation benefits received by plaintiff that were in excess of $1 million “retained limit.”