Insurance Law

Plaintiff filed a petition for writ of mandamus seeking to compel defendants to investigate and prosecute plaintiff’s claim of improper insurance claims practices against First Chicago Insurance Company under the Illinois Insurance Code and to adopt reasonable rules for implementation of the section of the code that provides the penalties the director can impose if a company engages in improper claims practices. The trial court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss and plaintiff appealed. The appellate court affirmed, finding that the trial court did not err in granting the defendant’s motion to dismiss because the plaintiff did not have a clear right to the relief requested and defendants did not have a clear duty to act and that plaintiff did not have standing to claim that she was injured by the director’s failure to “adopt reasonable rules,” because she did not sufficiently allege an injury associated with this allegation. (MIKVA and ODEN JOHNSON, concurring)

The plaintiff filed a declaratory judgment complaint against its insurer, seeking a declaration that its insurance policy covered economic losses from the Covid-19 pandemic. The trial court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss and plaintiff appealed. The appellate court affirmed, explaining that multiple state and federal courts previously have found that the Covid-19 pandemic did not cause physical loss or damage to property under the same or similar language to the policy in this case and that there were no facts that supported deviation from that precedent. (C.A. WALKER and GAMRATH, concurring)

Plaintiff, an insurance company in the status of a subrogee, filed a lawsuit against the defendant, a subcontractor on a construction project, for breach of contract alleging that the defendant’s designs caused building damage that resulted in the original insurance claim. The circuit court granted summary judgment to the defendant but the appellate court affirmed, finding that plaintiff could act as a subrogee even though its claimed status as subrogee was based on a payment made to a third party. The supreme court affirmed, finding that nothing about the facts precluded the plaintiff’s subrogation action where there was an insured loss compensated by the plaintiff insurance company. (THEIS, NEVILLE, HOLDER WHITE, CUNNINGHAM, ROCHFORD, and O’BRIEN, concurring)

In an insurance coverage matter, the defendant insurance company appealed from a trial court order granting summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff and finding that the defendant had a duty to defend the plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed by the plaintiff’s employees that alleged violations of the Biometric Information Privacy Act. On appeal, defendant argued that it had no duty to defend because the allegations of the complaint did not potentially fall within the coverage of the insurance policy at issue and that the plaintiff did not timely report the lawsuit. The appellate court reversed and remanded, finding that there was no duty to defend because the data breach section of the policy relied on by the plaintiffs only applied to allegations that an unauthorized third party accessed individuals’ personal information. The appellate court also found that the policy specifically excluded coverage of claims like the ones contained in the plaintiff’s complaint. (D.B. WALKER, concurring and REYES, dissenting)