The National Football League is seeking coverage from insurers that it says have refused to provide a defense as the league faces hundreds of concussion-related lawsuits from former players—but insurers are claiming they have no duty to indemnify or defend the NFL.
The list of defendants in a civil case filed Aug. 15 by the NFL and NFL Properties in California Superior Court includes companies from insurance groups such as Chartis, Chubb, Fireman's Fund, Travelers, Hartford, OneBeacon, Ace, Allstate, XL, Transatlantic, Crum & Forster and Alterra.
Alterra filed papers with the Supreme Court of the State of New York seeking a declaratory judgment that it has no duty to defend or indemnify the NFL because there is a dispute between the two about how its policy should be read and interpreted.
The NFL, meanwhile, seeks to recover more than $5 million in attorneys' fees and other costs it has already spent in defense of numerous lawsuits from thousands of former players and spouses alleging they suffered neurological damage from head injuries as a result of neglect and fraud by the league.
The NFL also wants a judge to say the insurers need to meet obligations to defend the NFL in current and future lawsuits.
Lastly, the NFL seeks a declaratory judgment that its umbrella and excess insurance providers also need to provide a defense.
Currently, says the NFL, insurers providing General Liability coverage since or at some point from 1968 to 2012 have “failed and refused to discharge their obligations to defend the NFL and NFL Properties in the injury lawsuits” and “have breached their duty to defend” though the league has paid millions of dollars in premiums.
The NFL says the primary policies “impose on each [insurer] a duty to defend…even if the allegations of the suit are groundless, false or fraudulent.”
Instead, what has ensued amounts to a “finger-pointing battle” among the insurers, says legal expert Joshua Gold, with law firm Anderson Kill & Olick, which is not representing either side.
“It's a huge fight over allocation,” Gold says. None of the insurers are stepping up to defend the NFL—and won't until it is determined which policies were in effect when the alleged bodily damage occurred.
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