Claims

How not to handle a lawsuit alleging historical environmental contamination

Brokers wanting to advise commercial clients on pollution liability risk might learn a lesson or two from London Transit Commission v. Eaton Industries (Canada) Company, released this past Friday by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. London, Ontario’s city bus service has operated a garage at its main office, on the east side of Highbury […]

By Greg Meckbach | March 9, 2020

4 min read

Claims

Sound and Fury

Who will decide the epic battle going on in B.C. over public v. private auto?

March 7, 2020

2 min read

Claims

Why this religious organization wants to appeal sexual abuse lawsuit

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 jury with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice awarded about $2.5 million to Rod MacLeod, […]

By Greg Meckbach | March 5, 2020

5 min read

Claims

Cause of 2018 Enbridge gas pipeline blast revealed

CALGARY – A delayed inspection and a failure to predict how fast cracks could develop from corrosion are cited in a report describing the cause of an explosion and fire in an Enbridge Inc. natural gas pipeline northeast of Prince George, B.C., in October 2018. No one was injured in the incident but 125 people […]

By Jason Contant | March 5, 2020

3 min read

Supreme Court Orphan Well ruling: the impact on brokers one year later

If you place pollution liability coverage, you could be hearing from banks and lenders concerned about oil and gas producers potentially going bankrupt. Inquiries about environment impairment liability are on the rise for at least one major Canadian brokerage following last year’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling arising from the bankruptcy of Redwater Energy Corp. […]

3 min read

Considering your climate risks? The solvency regulator is, too…

Climate change risk is very much on the radar of Canada’s solvency regulator. In a mid-February speech to the 17th Annual Review of Insolvency Law (ARIL) Conference in Vancouver, B.C., Jeremy Rudin, Canada’s superintendent of financial institutions, outlined three climate-related risks facing the country’s property and casualty insurers. Two of them, liability risks and physical […]

3 min read

How to negotiate the nuanced world of email fraud coverage

Your commercial client may think they are covered for all types of business email compromise (BEC) fraud automatically, but policy triggers are often nuanced, a speaker said recently at NetDiligence’s Cyber Risk Summit in Toronto. “The biggest misconception of our clients is, they think that if they get this one endorsement on their crime or […]

3 min read

Quebec broker offers his take on one major advantage of the province’s auto insurance model

While Quebec’s auto insurance model offers low bodily injury compensation amounts, it also limits the amount of fraud in the system, a Quebec broker told Canadian Underwriter Monday. In Quebec, the government’s Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) pays compensation for bodily injuries, while private insurers handle vehicle damage. (A portion of licence renewals […]

4 min read

Do police need a search warrant to obtain a vehicle’s event data recorder?

TORONTO – Police flouted a driver’s rights when they retrieved an electronic recording module from a car wreck days after a crash because they failed to get a search warrant or owner permission first, an Ontario judge has ruled. As a result, data indicating the driver was driving far above the speed limit just before […]

3 min read