Opinion ID: 1658184
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Policy Must Make Clear the Exclusion

Text: Francis, supra at 447-448, held that [i]t was incumbent on defendant casualty company ... so to draft the policy as to make clear the extent of nonliability under the exclusion clause. The implication of this rule is not only that ambiguities are to be construed against the insurer, but that the insurer has a positive and affirmative duty to make clear any exclusion. The question in Francis was whether an automobile injury to an employee being driven home according to agreement was compensable under an exclusion while engaged in the employment of the insured. The insurer, of course, argued that the employee was engaged in the employment of the insured, whereas the plaintiff employee argued he was not engaged in employment. This Court held for the employee and indicated that if the insurer didn't mean active in the work plaintiff was employed and paid to do it was up to the insurer to draft the provision to make clear what it wanted to say. Applying this rule to the instant cases, we discover that there was no reference at all to the so-called owned-automobile exclusion in the exclusions section. Consequently, the insurers are in violation of this rule and the exclusion is invalid unless it can be said that the definition of non-owned automobile was not a definition clause but an exclusion clause. If the definition were considered as an exclusion clause, it certainly wouldn't seem to have been made clear as Francis would require.