However, although this court never ignores the circumstances of a particular case, there are times when we must look beyond the immediate facts to principles of public policy and the broader ramifications that our decisions have on the people of this state as a whole. We are persuaded that the possibility of collusion is great enough to warrant allowing family exclusion clauses to cover contribution actions. Therefore, we hold that such clauses are not contrary to public policy, even though there may be no collusion in this particular case. The next issue is whether or not the language of this specific family exclusion clause encompasses contribution actions. Construction of an insurance policy is a question of law which this court reviews de novo .
Insurance contracts are subject to the same rules of construction as other contracts.
See Ehlers v. Colonial Penn. The first step in such analysis is, of course, to examine the language of the policy itself. Smith v. Atlantic Mut. This rule of strict construction, however, is not applicable if the policy is unambiguous. Furthermore, the principle of construing exclusions narrowly does not allow a court to completely eviscerate an exclusion which is clear from the face of the policy.