Pleading Into Coverage and the Duty to Defend: Strategies to Enhance Insurer Involvement

Course Details
- smart_display Format
Live Online with Live Q&A
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
Intermediate
- work Practice Area
Insurance
- event Date
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
- schedule Time
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
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This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
This CLE webinar will instruct insurance litigators on how to plead allegations that fall within a policy's coverage grant but outside the policy's exclusions when alleging the underlying claims that trigger coverage and the duty to defend. The program will identify mistakes that can get complaints dismissed although the underlying facts of the claim are within coverage. The panel will also speak to the issue of "inartful" pleading that attempts to trigger the duty to defend an excluded claim.
Faculty
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Mr. Schwartz is a highly skilled litigator with more than 30 years of experience litigating insurance recovery claims and litigation, as well as complex federal and state litigation. He has expertly managed claims and lawsuits against insurance companies in courts nationwide, making insurance companies uphold their commitments to policyholders. Mr. Schwartz has a stellar reputation with clients and colleagues as part of his distinguished career handling complex insurance recovery litigation matters in both federal and state courts.
Description
Coverage turns almost entirely on how the underlying actions are pleaded. Thus, insurance litigators want to discover available insurance policies and then draft pleadings--whether plaintiff or defense--that trigger the available coverage and the duty to defend.
Problems arise because the facts crucial to establishing coverage often have no bearing on liability. Thus, attorneys can plead too little, leaving out facts demonstrating coverage and giving the insurer ample ground to argue it has no duty to defend the policyholder.
Attorneys can also plead too much and end up pleading "outside of coverage." The complaint may contain causes of action that are covered, but the facts alleged only support a non-covered or excluded claim. Although pleading "outside of coverage" is not always fatal to the duty to defend or to coverage, it can create a host of unnecessary complications and dampen insurer involvement.
Listen as this experienced panel instructs insurance litigators how to plead covered claims and how to avoid mistakes that can cause a complaint to be dismissed even when the underlying facts of the claim are within coverage.
Outline
I. Benefits of triggering duty to defend
II. Strategies for identifying available policies
III. Identifying and pleading facts needed to trigger coverage
IV. Avoiding triggering exclusions
V. Remedies for "under" and "over" pleading
VI. "Inartful" pleading and uncovered claims
Benefits
The panel will review these and other critical issues:
- Are there ever situations where a policyholder would want to avoid coverage?
- Are there ever situations where the plaintiff would want to avoid coverage?
- What happens if the complaint fails to allege undisputed facts that, had they been alleged, would have triggered the insurer's duty to defend?
- If an extrinsic fact is relevant to determining coverage, but not liability, can it be considered by an insurer when deciding the duty to defend?
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