Adam H. Fleischer discusses the recent insurance ruling in Giant Eagle v. American Guarantee, et al., which concluded on May 25th that an opioid policyholder cannot use its payment of defense costs to erode either its own self-insured retention or the limits of its primary insurance. 

As America’s multi-billion dollar opioid lawsuits move toward resolution and opioid policyholders continue to incur millions of dollars in defending the ongoing opioid litigation, it becomes increasingly important to determine the extent to which those defense costs erode either self-insured retentions, or any insurance layers.

The re-evaluated ruling in Giant Eagle places the proper industry expectations that, absent specific language to the contrary, defense costs are typically not capable of eroding underlying insurance layers, especially when such underlying exhaustion is premised on the payment of loss rather than expense. 

Click here to read the Law360 article.