Insurance agents and brokers are professionals with limited obligations. They must, for example, acquire the insurance the client required they obtain. They are not, however, obligated to do a close study and determine the coverages the insured needs but does not know enough to ask for, unless the agent or broker and the insured enter into a fiduciary relationship.
In one recent case, the New York state appellate department was asked to impose liability for failure to acquire insurance needed by the plaintiff.
The common-law rule is that an insurance broker acting as an agent of its customer has a duty of reasonable care to the customer to obtain specifically requested coverage within a reasonable time after the request, or to inform the customer of the agent's inability to do so.
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