Insurance, Indemnity, and Contribution: The Complex Interplay in Commercial Transactions
Drafting Indemnification Provisions and Ensuring Adequate Coverage for Contractual Liabilities

Course Details
- smart_display Format
On-Demand
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
Intermediate
- work Practice Area
Insurance
- event Date
Thursday, September 21, 2023
- schedule Time
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
-
This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
This CLE course will provide insurance counsel with a roadmap for understanding statutory and common law contribution and indemnification. The panel will analyze disputes that arise when reconciling indemnity agreements and insurance provisions and outline best practices for drafting indemnification language.
Faculty

Ms. Brown’s practice focuses on complex insurance coverage litigation. She has represented clients in matters involving toxic tort, environmental, intellectual property and weather insurance coverage disputes. She has also represented clients in disputes involving private indemnity agreements.

Mr. McVisk focuses his practice on complex insurance coverage litigation and hospital law and medical liability. He has handled all areas of coverage and bad faith litigation, especially third-party bad faith and coverage litigation involving commercial general liability, professional liability coverages as well as personal lines coverages such as auto and homeowners coverages.
Description
Indemnification agreements are widely used to shift risk in a variety of commercial transactions. Insurance coverage counsel must understand the impact of indemnity agreements on insurance--who is ultimately responsible for the claim? When and how is this responsibility shared?
Coverage disputes often arise when attempting to reconcile indemnity agreements and insurance policies. "Other insurance" clauses and exclusions for liabilities assumed by contract provide fertile ground for disputes and litigation.
The indemnitor must negotiate contractual provisions that limit the scope of the indemnification. The party seeking indemnification must negotiate provisions that address the indemnitee's negligence, additional insured status, and scope of the defense.
Listen as our authoritative panel of insurance attorneys discusses the law of contribution and indemnity and how to reconcile contractual indemnity language with insurance policy provisions. The panel will offer best practices for drafting contractual indemnification provisions.
Outline
- Contribution and indemnification
- Contribution: comparative fault, statutory contribution, the effect of settlement
- Indemnity: contractual, implied, imposed by law
- Contractual indemnification: limitations, duty to defend, right to independent counsel, additional insured provisions
- Reconciling indemnity obligations and insurance policies
- Other insurance clauses
- Exclusion for liability assumed by contract
- Evaluating and drafting indemnity provisions
- Indemnitor perspective
- Indemnitee perspective
Benefits
The panel will review these and other key issues:
- What are the parameters of statutory and common law indemnity, and how can parties alter these obligations contractually?
- What are common types of "other insurance clauses," and how do they interact?
- How can counsel craft contractual indemnification provisions that protect clients whether the indemnitor or indemnitee?
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