Nina Kallen writes the blog www.insurancecoveragemassachusetts.blogspot.com
We love Kallen’s blog and have asked her to let us reprint her posts on things we think might be of interest to the independent agents of the Commonwealth. Here is her latest:
Virginia Business has an excellent article by Collin Hite on the uselessness of certificates of insurance. I wholeheartedly agree with his analysis.The article discusses a new law in Virginia that attempts to prevent certificates of insurance from containing misleading language about what rights the certificate gives a certificate-holder. While that may be occasionally helpful, in my view the real problem with certificates of insurance is that they exist at all. As they cannot be used as proof of coverage, why issue them? The safer practice would be for an entity seeking proof that it is an additional insured on someone else’s policy to require that the primary insured provide a copy of the coverage selection page. If the coverage selection page does not list additional insureds by name, that part of the policy that does name or define additional insureds should be provided. Although that won’t prevent the problem of a policy being canceled by the primary insured without notice to the additional insured, it would be a step in the right direction.
More about Nina Kallen
Nina Kallen has been an attorney in Massachusetts since 1994. Her practice focuses mainly on general litigation and in particular insurance coverage issues. You can learn more about her, and find links to her published opinions, at www.kallenlawyer.com. In 2008, Kallen began her blog Insurance Coverage Law in Massachusetts which has been crowned a Top 50 Insurance Community Law blog in 2008, 2009 and 2011 by LexisNexis.