Do personal & advertising injury policies cover rogue bounty hunters?
The pair were caught after the California Insurance Department found an online video misidentifying the men as undercover officers.
Two former police officers have been indicted on three felonies each, including kidnapping, false imprisonment and use of a firearm during a felony.
The two men were working as bail fugitive recovery persons, a.k.a. “bounty hunters,” despite the fact that neither of them had completed the bail fugitive recovery training. They were caught after the California Insurance Department found an online video misidentifying the men as undercover officers while they looked for a person who had missed multiple court appearances.
According to the charges, the two men were visibly armed when they allegedly kidnapped the girlfriend of the person they sought and handcuffed her while driving around. As of June 2022, only bail agents and sureties are subject to licensure requirements and oversight by the department, where bail fugitive recovery persons only need to satisfy certain training requirements.
Their actions are something we don’t often run across, kidnapping and false imprisonment. At first glance, these acts fall within the personal and advertising injury liability coverage under ISO’s CGL policy CG 00 01. This section specifically covers “personal and advertising injury,” which includes false arrest, detention, or imprisonment in the definition of “personal and advertising injury.” In the situation described above, however, there is one crucial difference: The two former police officers acted intentionally. As we all know intentional acts are excluded in insurance policies.
However, Assembly Bill 2043, sponsored by the Department and Commissioner Ricardo Lara, would require bail fugitive recovery persons to be licensed and bring them under the Department’s supervision.
While the men didn’t actually commit insurance fraud, the Assembly Bill, if passed, would bring their actions under the control of the department, similar to bail agents and others.
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