Opinion ID: 6104644
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: CGL Coverage

Text: To begin, Navigators concedes that the Starr policy provides “standard primary CGL [i]nsurance, modified slightly to cover marine operations.” It also agrees that BP is an additional assured under the Starr and COPS policies, and that its Primary Bumbershoot policy provides excess coverage that “expressly includes the Starr Policy and the COPS policy by name.” Finally, Navigators describes the First Excess Bumbershoot policy as “follow-form” of its primary policy. To state these facts is to conclude that the bumbershoot policies afford CGL-type coverage as described in the BP-O’Brien’s Contract. Navigators resists the obvious, emphasizing general differences between CGL and bumbershoot policies writ large. General distinctions are unpersuasive here. Undoubtedly, bumbershoot policies can differ from standard CGL policies. See Robert T. Lemon II, Allocation of Marine Risks: An Overview of the Marine Insurance Package, 81 Tul. L. Rev. 1467, 1492 8 Case: 20-30364 Document: 00516171755 Page: 9 Date Filed: 01/19/2022 No. 20-30364 (2007) (citation omitted) (recognizing that a “CGL policy is not a marine policy and is not intended to cover risks[]”). But the specific coverage overlap of Navigators’ bumbershoot policies with the Starr policy (which was modified to cover marine operations, after all), together with the bumbershoot policies’ direct reference to the Starr and COPS policies, refutes any meaningful distinction here. Therefore, the specific coverage provided by the policies is the relevant inquiry. 8 The bumbershoot policies provide CGL-type coverage, so they are best understood as CGL policies under the BP-O’Brien’s Contract, and BP is an additional assured. Navigators also asserts that the BP-O’Brien’s Contract limits BP’s assured status to “primary CGL insurance, not bumbershoot, umbrella or excess insurance.” But the word “primary” is nowhere in the text of the Contract, which requires only that O’Brien’s “maintain” CGL insurance with a certain minimum limit. 9 8 At one point in this litigation, O’Brien’s and BP considered the term CGL as used in the agreement to encompass the Primary Bumbershoot policy. In opposing motions for judgment on the pleadings, the Responders stated that “BP was automatically named as an additional insured on the [Primary Bumbershoot policy], which provides CGL insurance.” And in their answer to BP’s amended counterclaims, the Responders recognized that “[i]n June 2019, O’Brien’s notified BP that BP is an additional insured under the [Primary Bumbershoot policy] . . . .” Although the Responders now take “no position” on the insurance issue “because it does not concern them,” their prior clear understanding of the Primary Bumbershoot policy supports our conclusion that Navigators’ policies provide CGL-type coverage. See Harris v Rowe, 593 S.W.2d 303, 306 (Tex. 1979) (recognizing that “[c]ourts rightfully assume that parties to a contract are in the best position to know what was intended by the language employed[,]” and “should adopt the construction of the instrument as placed upon it by the parties unless there is clear language in the instrument indicating an intention to the contrary” (citations omitted)). 9 To be sure, some contracts include separate provisions requiring CGL insurance and also excess coverage. See, e.g., Ironshore Specialty Ins. Co. v. Aspen Underwriting, Ltd., 788 F.3d 456, 458 (5th Cir. 2015) (requiring CGL insurance and excess liability insurance above the CGL policy in distinct subsections). None of the cases cited by Navigators, 9 Case: 20-30364 Document: 00516171755 Page: 10 Date Filed: 01/19/2022 No. 20-30364