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Insurance Coverage

Wargo French Singer’s Insurance Coverage and Defense attorneys have a broad and deep level of experience across insurance products and disputes. Our attorneys routinely provide counsel to clients regarding their diverse insurance products and have extensive experience litigating matters involving first- and third-party liability, bodily injury, property damage, premises liability, and bad faith or extracontractual disputes. Our attorneys focus their client service on preventing disputes before they materialize and resolving disputes as efficiently as possible. Accordingly, a significant portion of our coverage work is outside of litigation, solving problems before they occur.

When litigation is unavoidable, WFS attorneys have developed litigation strategies to reduce both risk and legal spend.  We routinely litigate insurance related disputes and participate in arbitration and mediation proceedings when appropriate, advise on claims handling issues, and assist clients with evaluating and resolving insurance and risk-management issues to minimize exposure and reduce claims.  We are able to focus the dispute on the client’s best argument, efficiently maximizing leverage for resolution. This is our distinction with a difference.

THE FOLLOWING MATTERS ARE INDICATIVE OF THE TYPES OF INSURANCE MATTERS WE’VE HANDLED:
  • Ongoing representation of a national homeowner insurance carrier in federal and state court actions (circuit, county, and small claims) involving breach of contract, bad faith, negligence, petitions for declaratory relief, petitions for appraisal, and fraud.
  • Ongoing representation of a national commercial general liability carrier in federal and state court actions (circuit, county, and small claims) involving negligence, property damage, business income disputes, landlord/tenant disputes, and bad faith.
  • Obtained summary judgment for underwriters of primary insurance policy against an excess insurer in a case seeking a declaration that the primary policy limit was not exhausted or eroded by payment of sums in settlement of disputed claim.
  • Obtained summary judgement in favor of insurer holding that it could not be bound to insure contractor under additional-insured clause, even where insured subcontractor had agreed to indemnify contractor for contractor’s own negligence. Obtained affirmance of judgment on appeal.
  • Obtained summary judgment in favor of insurer finding that competing insurer under an additional-insured endorsement owed a shared duty to defend security company implicated in a severe fan beating at the San Francisco 49ers Levi’s Stadium. The competing insurer appealed, but voluntarily dismissed appeal after WFS filed its brief.
  • Assisted insurance carriers in settling coverage dispute over the historic $50 million cleanup of the San Diego Harbor.
  • Prevailed on a motion to dismiss Judd Apatow’s million-dollar property insurance claim.
  • Pursued and settled coverage claim against carrier relating to secondary asbestos exposure.
  • Pursued and settled coverage claim against carrier relating to wage and hour class action lawsuit.
  • Defended at-fault drivers and insurance carriers in first- and third-party actions related to gig economy work, where claims included allegations of negligence, premises liability, and loss of consortium.

All Practice Areas

Miriam E. Castillo
Michael S. French
J. Blake Mansker
Daniel H. Perez
Taylor E. Pernini
Amelia M. Ravelo