Insurance Law

In action alleging that defendant breached insurance contract and denied in bad faith plaintiff’s claim for long-term disability benefits, Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff’s contract claim was moot where defendant had previously paid plaintiff all benefits due under contract after agreeing with plaintiff that defendant had used wrong standard in initially denying plaintiff’s application for said benefits. Moreover, plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence with respect to plaintiff’s bad-faith claim where: (1) Wisconsin law required demonstration of defendant’s knowledge or reckless disregard of lack of reasonable basis for denying claim; (2) plaintiff failed to show that defendant knew it was applying wrong standard at time it denied plaintiff’s claim; and (3) defendant’s use of wrong standard was mere honest mistake.

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant-insured's motion for summary judgment in action by plaintiff-insurance company seeking declaration that defendant was not entitled to any underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage where defendant, who was named insured on said policy, incurred uncompensated injuries while riding as passenger in vehicle which was not covered under policy. While plaintiff argued that defendant was not entitled to any coverage because she was injured while using non-covered vehicle, Appellate Court noted that UIM endorsement of policy included defendant as insured and found that defendant was entitled to UIM coverage where UIM endorsement did not contain language limiting coverage to insureds traveling in covered vehicles at time of accident.