Opinion ID: 2168122
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: this endorsement changes the policy. please read it carefully.

Text: This endorsement modifies insurance provided under the following: Commercial General Liability Coverage Part This insurance does not apply to property damage included within the explosion hazard or underground property damage hazard except as modified below: EXPLOSIVES LIMITATION ENDORSEMENT This insurance will apply to those sums that the insured becomes legally obligated to pay as damages for occurrences included within the explosion hazard or underground property damage hazard which[sic] arise out of covered operations subject to the following schedule of deductibles: Amount and Basis of Property Damage Liability Deductible $25,000 per occurrence for intentional detonation $0 per occurrence for unintentional detonation The following definitions are added. a. Covered Materials shall mean the following products: Explosives, blasting agents, blasting materials, blasting supplies, and related products such as, but not limited to, ammonium nitrate, T.N.T., black powder, non-nitroglycerine explosives, nitroglycerine explosives, detonating cord, blasting caps, safety fuse, smokeless powder, nitro-carbon-nitrates, slurries, emulsions, explosives gels, and various carbonaceous material including fuel oil. b. Job site means the premises where covered materials are to be used for their intended purposes or delivered to and received by the customer or his agent or consignee prior to use for their intended purposes. c. Covered operations means the intentional detonation of the covered materials at a job site with your personnel present, or unintentional detonation of covered materials while being manufactured, prepared, processed, transported, or stored, other than when in or on an automobile. Storage includes loading or unloading of covered materials from a mobile magazine while such magazine is disconnected from an automobile power unit and parked at a temporary or permanent location. d. Explosion hazard includes property damage arising out of blasting or explosion. The explosion hazard does not include property damage arising out of the explosion of air or steam vessels, piping under pressure, prime movers, machinery or power transmitting equipment. e. Underground property damage hazard includes underground property damage and any resulting property damage to any property at any time. f. Underground property damage means property damage to wires, conduits, pipes, mains, sewers, tanks, tunnels, any similar property, and any apparatus used with them beneath the surface of the ground or water, caused by and occurring during the use of explosives or mechanical equipment for the purpose of grading land, paving, excavating, drilling, mining, borrowing, filling, back-filling or pile-driving. The insurance shall not apply to property damage arising from: a. The demolition by you or others working on your behalf, of man made structures or from tunnel construction (including mine shafts, road tunnels, railroad tunnels and other large diameter tunnels used for water mains, sewer lines, etc., not open excavation) operations including, but not limited to, the preparing, approving or failing to approve maps, drawing, opinions, reports, surveys, change orders, designs, or specifications and supervisory inspection or engineering services related to demolition of man made structures and tunnel construction. b. Shot coal. c. Poor breakage, including any failure to obtain desired fragmentation or fracture. d. Transportation by an automobile or loading or unloading of any automobile. It is understood and agreed that Exclusion M of the Commercial General Liability Coverage Form is deleted in its entirety, as respects covered materials manufactured by an Insured, and replaced by the following: m. Property damage to impaired property or property that has not been physically injured, arising out of: (1) A defect, deficiency, inadequacy or dangerous condition in your product or your work; or (2) A delay or failure by you or anyone acting on your behalf to perform a contract or agreement in accordance with its terms. As we said in Peerless Ins. Co. v. Brennon, 564 A.2d at 384-85: Whether a given insurance contract is ambiguous is a question of law for the court. E.g., Banker's Life Ins. Co. of Nebraska v. Eaton, 430 A.2d 833, 834 (Me.1981). The language of a contract of insurance is ambiguous if it is reasonably susceptible of different interpretations. Brackett v. Middlesex Ins. Co., 486 A.2d 1188, 1189 (Me.1985). In addition, [a] policy is ambiguous if an ordinary person in the shoes of the insured would not understand that the policy did not cover claims such as those brought.... Allstate Ins. Co. v. Elwell, 513 A.2d 269, 271 (Me.1986). Nevertheless, [t]he court must interpret unambiguous language in a contract according to its plain and commonly accepted meaning. Brackett v. Middlesex Ins. Co., 486 A.2d at 1190. Finally, in determining whether an insurance contract is ambiguous, the long-standing rule in Maine requires an evaluation of the instrument as a whole. A contract of insurance, like any other contract, is to be construed in accordance with the intention of the parties, which is to be ascertained from an examination of the whole instrument. All parts and clauses must be considered together that it may be seen if and how far one clause is explained, modified, limited or controlled by the others. Swift v. Patrons Androscoggin Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 125 Me. 255, 256, 132 A. 745, 746 (1926). The policy in this case, read with its endorsements, is unambiguous. Subsections (j)(5) and (j)(6) serve to limit the coverage to that property damage occurring to property other than that on which the insured is to perform its work. The endorsement confirms coverage for occurrence of harm blasting risk, albeit at a higher deductible. The endorsement by its plain language does not extend coverage where coverage did not exist, but provides for a deductible where coverage does exist. The exclusions contained in subsections (j)(5) and (j)(6) are unaffected by the plain language of the Explosives Limitation Endorsement. We answer the certified question in the negative. WATHEN, C.J., and ROBERTS, CLIFFORD and LIPEZ, JJ., concurring.