Insurance Coverage Disputes

Asbestos exposure happened many years before illness appeared, so it can be unclear which years of insurance coverage should respond to a claim. A company may have had several different insurers over the decades, and some of those insurers may no longer exist. The policies themselves may include limits, exclusions or wording that the parties read differently. Insurers and companies sometimes go to court to decide how responsibility is shared among them. These disputes are between the company and its insurers, not with you, but they can affect when and how a settlement gets funded.

When a defendant is waiting on its insurers, it may take longer to agree to a settlement or to pay one that has already been agreed. In some cases, payment terms reflect this by spreading payments over time or setting later payment dates. For families, the main effect is usually a longer wait rather than a lost claim. Your attorney may already know which defendants have ongoing coverage problems and can factor that into strategy and expectations about timing. It is fair to ask directly whether any delay you are experiencing is connected to an insurance dispute.

There is little a claimant can do to speed up a coverage fight directly, since the parties are the company and its insurers. What you can do is keep other parts of the recovery moving. Trust claims, for example, pay separately from defendants' insurers and are not usually held up by these disputes. Stay in touch with your attorney for updates and ask whether any part of the recovery can be pursued sooner. At home, make financial plans that do not depend on a single payment arriving by a specific date, so a delay does not become a crisis.

1. 1

   Ask your attorney whether any defendant has an insurance dispute affecting payment timing.

2. 2

   Keep trust claims moving while lawsuit settlements are pending.

3. 3

   Plan household finances without relying on one payment arriving on a fixed date.

4. 4

   Request periodic updates on any delayed settlement and the reason for the delay.