Reader Letters

I have been an agent for more than 30 years, and the discourse on politics in our business is so blindly one-sided. Your publication could help but you have become an advocate for the anti-Obama crowd. Please don't paint me a liberal—I have voted for Reagan twice, the Bush family three times and worked for Bob Dole for a year. But my Republican party has left and I hardly recognize what is left.

Chuck Candler
Southlake, Texas

I agree with Laura Mazzuca Toops' conclusion in her blog article. The U.S. can be so polarized it amazes and often dismays me, but our genius is focusing that energy to build a successful nation. 

Chip Colburn
Sac City, Iowa

Terry Ferrell
San Antonio, Texas

I was expecting a “Damn Obama” article but did not get it. Thank you. All of the venomous responses are from thoughtless egotists who won't admit that they did have help from government some way, somehow.

I have a good business and am very thankful for it. I pay my taxes and do resent them being wasted. Wasted in my eyes means expenses for war and corporate welfare (money received but not given back). What is their definition of wasted?

Robert Black
Wesley Chapel, Fla.

Retailer Role

I read with interest Lawrence T. Bowman's blog article “Broker E&O Risk in Surplus-Lines Agreements” (propertycasualty360.com, July 9). 

As a retail independent agent located in coastal Georgia, we see more and more of our property risks going to surplus lines brokers. The article did not mention any action that Graham might have undertaken toward the retailer who apparently submitted the application online and perhaps answered underwriting questions for the insureds. Was the retailer omitted from all the litigation in this case?

Thanks for the time. We will use this case to stress to our staff the importance of reviewing the underwriting guidelines submitted to us, if any, by the brokers.

Walter Corish, Jr.
Savannah, Ga.

Bowman response: The Fifth Circuit just decided a case involving liability coverage for the contractor's work and found the claim excluded under the contractual exclusion. Earlier, the Texas Supreme Court found coverage under the CGL policy for a builder by virtue of the acts of subcontractors exception to the “your work” exclusion of coverage; The Texas Supreme Court looked at the basic grant of coverage in the policy and found coverage an accident causing property damage even though the damaged property constituted the work performed by the contractor (Lamar v. Midcontinent). Later in Gilbert Construction v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyds, the Texas Supreme Court retreated from the broad holding in Lamar.

Now it appears that we are back to square one if the industry opts to go with the Fifth Circuit's analysis—which would mean no coverage for damage to the subject matter of the contract, i.e., the work performed by the contractor. 

So, the contractor wants liability coverage for damage to any property, including the work he has performed, and the carriers may be faced with demand for a product that isn't written in the forms generally available until the industry provides a form insuring the work as well as other property damages due to errors or omissions of the contractor.