Minnesota Archives - The Insurance & Reinsurance Report

Logical Construction: Federal Court Relies on Practical Considerations in Finding No Coverage for Lost Future Earnings

In 3M Co. v. National Union Fire Insurance Co., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131197 (D. Minn., September 28, 2015) a federal judge for the District of Minnesota determined that a policyholder was not entitled to coverage for earnings on its investment in a trading company engaged in a Ponzi scheme because it did not own the earnings.

The policyholder invested its employee-benefit plan assets in the trading company. The investment took the form of a limited partnership in the trading company. In 2009, …

September 15, 2015 Automobile Coverage

Request Denied: Constitutionality Challenge of the No-Fault Automobile Insurance Act (NFAIA) Overruled in Minnesota

The No-Fault Automobile Insurance Act’s mandatory arbitration requirement of claims for $10,000 or less is now confirmed to be constitutional, according to the judgment delivered recently by the Court of Appeals of Minnesota in Unger v. AAA Ins. Co., No. A14-1885 (Minn. Ct. App. Aug. 10, 2015).

Ruth and Amanda Unger were injured in a car accident after which they received chiropractic care and physical therapy. A few months later, however, AAA Insurance Company seized payment of on-going benefits and sent a letter …

March 25, 2015 Occurrence

No Duty To Defend Malicious Defamation Claims: Eighth Circuit Finds No Coverage Based on Underlying Complaint’s Assertion of Defamation with Intent To Injure

In Sletten & Brettin Orthodontics, LLC v. Continental Casualty Co., No. 13-2918 (8th Cir., Mar. 19, 2015), the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit considered and rejected the insured’s argument that its commercial general liability policy’s coverage provisions pertaining to defamation claims were ambiguous and/or illusory. As background, the underlying complaint alleged that one of the underlying defendants posted defamatory messages about a competing orthodontic practice on a Yahoo! Review site while pretending to be the claimants’ aggrieved patients. The underlying …