Many forms of liability insurance protect against invasion of privacy claims. Should a policyholder be confronted by such a claim, umbrella insurance, general liability insurance, errors and omissions policies and other stand-alone specialty insurance policies should be checked for potential coverage. More proactively, if an insurance portfolio review reveals that those provisions have been written out of the businesses’ portfolio of insurance, the broker should be enlisted to get those increasingly important coverages back in.

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Managing value and risk is generally an intuitive skill and learned by experience. By applying a discipline to this inherent process you can better manage value creation and avoid destruction from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. It is a balancing act between risk mitigation and risk exploitation and the winners will be those companies that understand the market and their value proposition better than their competition.

For more, read the rest of his informative article only on RMmagazine.com.

In one recent case, for example, a policyholder was the victim of a computer hacker. The insurance company refused to pay the claim, but the court rejected the insurers attempts to evade payment and ruled that the policyholder was entitled to crime coverage for the theft of customer data.

Such a ruling is not only supported by the language of many crime policies (which often contain a provision indicating that they provide coverage for the theft of property not owned but in the possession of the policyholder), but also by numerous crime insurance coverage cases over the decades.

For more on this important coverage issue, check out the rest of the article, only on RMmagazine.com.

Paice founder Alex Severinsky, who had claimed that Toyota infringed on his 1994 patent, was pleased with the result.

“Finally people understand the merits of what I invented and give it the proper value,” Severinsky said. “Toyota is the leading technology company and finally appreciates the value of the invention.”

Toyota had insisted that, while its technology was similar to Paice patent, its hyrib vehicles were the result of its own independent research. Evidently, both parties were in agreement.

“The parties agree that, although certain Toyota vehicles have been found to be equivalent to a Paice patent, Toyota invented, designed and developed the Prius and Toyota’s hybrid technology independent of any inventions of Dr. Severinsky and Paice as part of Toyota’s long history of innovation,” both companies said in separate statements.

With this issue out of the way, Toyota can now concentrate on its latest round of subpeonas. This time, a federal grand jury in New York is investigating whether or not Toyota notified the NHTSA in a timely fashion about faulty steering rods.

For Toyota, a bad year just keeps getting worse.

Regardless of size, the key to winning is translating the CEO’s goals and values into employee actions and behavior. Successful organizations possess four key attributes: 1) strong leadership; 2) individual accountability; 3) effective risk management; and 4) human resources reinforcement. A practical action plan to garner better control of your company requires steps in each of these areas.

Be sure to check out this interesting look at what makes an organization great, exclusively at RMmagazine.com.

Shifting the responsibility to procure insurance coverage to a business partner is a useful strategy for reducing insurance costs, but it is not without risk. Relying solely on the resulting certificate of insurance can be problematic. If commercial property/casualty insurance coverage is not in place as anticipated, or otherwise fails to respond as anticipated to a loss because of an unknown coverage limitation, the firm may find itself unexpectedly underinsured.

For more information on an often-overlooked insurance tool, be sure to read their article exclusively at RMmagazine.com.

This patent fight originally began in 2004, when Paice LLC, a Florida-based hybrid technology company, sued Toyota for using its patented technology in second-generation Prius vehicles. The court ruled that Toyota had infringed on Paice’s patent and Toyota filed multiple appeals, losing each time. According to Forbes, Toyota has paid $5 million in damages and a small fraction of the court-ordered license fee of $98 a car while it challenges future royalties. In the latest case, Paice is claiming that Toyota’s third-generation hybrids are also infringing on its patents and that Toyota is not paying enough in royalties. Paice is ultimately hoping to get the International Trade Commission to ban Toyota hybrids altogether. Toyota has fought to get the case dismissed but to no avail.

According to one expert, who commented on the case last year, a ban is unlikely. But if it does happen, Toyota would be looking at production delays, the inability to sell hybrid vehicles in the United States and millions of dollars in lost revenue while it inevitably tries to work out a licensing agreement.

When taken with the ongoing recall fiasco, this patent infringement mess is further evidence of the difference a year can make in business. This time last year, Toyota was seen as the industry gold standard. But their ongoing troubles paint a picture of a car company that seems to have gotten caught up in believing its own press and lost sight of key details, like safety and technology, that helped make it great. A company that once was the model for quality is quickly becoming a textbook example of the dangers of complacency.

Be diligent in the application process and negotiate the language.
Providing complete and accurate disclosures in the policy application is critical because material misrepresentations in many states avoid coverage even without proof of an intent to deceive and without having to show that the misrepresentation was related to the loss. In many states, to demonstrate materiality, the insurer need not prove that it would not have issued the policy at all – merely that it would not have issued it on the same terms and conditions or for the same premium. If the insurer succeeds in rescinding the policy on the basis of misrepresentation, it is void - there is no coverage even for innocent insureds.

Be sure not to miss their informative article, featured exclusively at RMmagazine.com.

Well it turns out that unfortunate comments have become a bit of a habit for Mr. Hayward and Newsweek took the time to compile some of the “best” ones.

On April 29, The New York Times reported that Hayward, apparently exasperated, turned to fellow executives in his London office and asked, “What the hell did we do to deserve this?” (A possible answer might be the company’s 760 safety violations over the last three years. ExxonMobil, in contrast, has had just one.)

On May 14, Hayward attempted to persuade The Guardian that “the Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

Only a few days later, he told Sky News that “the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest.” That might surprise the many scientists who see the spill as a true environmental calamity, the full extent of which remains unclear.

Obviously it’s bad enough for BP that they haven’t been able to stop the leaking oil. Their stock price is taking a beating and they have become an object of ridicule and disdain (as exemplified by this series of satirical billboards). But a CEO that can’t stop putting his foot in his mouth is certainly not helping. As they saying goes,”If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has begun civil and criminal investigations into the circumstances surrounding the spill, intending to prosecute any responsible parties to the “fullest extent of the law.”

One person briefed on the inquiry said it was in an early stage and that no subpoenas had been issued yet to BP, the owner of the well. It was unclear whether any had gone to Transocean, which leased the Deepwater Horizon, the nine-year-old drilling rig that exploded and sank in April, to BP; Cameron, the company that manufactured a “blowout preventer” that failed to function after the explosion; or Halliburton, which performed drilling services like cementing.

Administration officials said they were reviewing violations of the Clean Water Act, which carries criminal and civil penalties and fines; the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which can be used to hold parties responsible for cleanup costs; the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Endangered Species Act, which provide penalties for injury and death of wildlife.

In addition to its inability to stop the oil from gushing into the the Gulf, some of BP’s comments have not helped it to garner public sympathy. When reports recently surfaced that cleanup workers were experiencing nosebleeds, headaches, nausea, vomiting and shortness of breath – symptoms that are evidently similar to exposure to the chemical dispersant that BP is using – BP CEO Tony Hayward dismissed the illness as food poisoning. Food poisoning experts have disagreed with Hayward’s assessment and have pointed to a lack of proper safety equipment.

“These do not sound like the symptoms my clients typically suffer, ” said nationally-known food safety attorney Bill Marler. “It’s not that I wouldn’t mind suing BP.”

Of greater concern perhaps is the long-term environmental and economic impact this disaster will have. Although the outcome is still unknown, it is almost certain to be devastating. For businesses in the Gulf area it will be important to understand their insurance coverage . To that end, be sure to check out Anderson Kill & Olick’s latest online Fine Print column in Risk Management magazine. Originally the subject of an AKO Policyholder Alert, the article discusses the policies that could be in play for your company.

The massive losses are covered by a variety of insurance policies already purchased by those being harmed. First party property and business interruption (BI) insurance certainly will provide coverage for certain losses. Liability insurance, both general liability and pollution liability policies, will provide defense and indemnity for lawsuits. Directors and officers insurance also will provide coverage for derivative lawsuits against directors and officers.

Be sure to check it out and stay tuned to the Risk Management Monitor for more updates.