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Pleading Into Coverage and the Duty to Defend: Strategies to Enhance Insurer Involvement

A live 90-minute CLE video webinar with interactive Q&A

This program is included with the Strafford CLE Pass. Click for more information.
This program is included with the Strafford All-Access Pass. Click for more information.

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

1:00pm-2:30pm EDT, 10:00am-11:30am PDT

Early Registration Discount Deadline, Friday, June 27, 2025

or call 1-800-926-7926
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This CLE webinar will instruct insurance litigators on how to plead allegations that fall within a policy's coverage grant but outside the policy's exclusions when alleging the underlying claims that trigger coverage and the duty to defend. The program will identify mistakes that can get complaints dismissed although the underlying facts of the claim are within coverage. The panel will also speak to the issue of "inartful" pleading that attempts to trigger the duty to defend an excluded claim.

Description

Coverage turns almost entirely on how the underlying actions are pleaded. Thus, insurance litigators want to discover available insurance policies and then draft pleadings--whether plaintiff or defense--that trigger the available coverage and the duty to defend.

Problems arise because the facts crucial to establishing coverage often have no bearing on liability. Thus, attorneys can plead too little, leaving out facts demonstrating coverage and giving the insurer ample ground to argue it has no duty to defend the policyholder.

Attorneys can also plead too much and end up pleading "outside of coverage." The complaint may contain causes of action that are covered, but the facts alleged only support a non-covered or excluded claim. Although pleading "outside of coverage" is not always fatal to the duty to defend or to coverage, it can create a host of unnecessary complications and dampen insurer involvement.

Listen as this experienced panel instructs insurance litigators how to plead covered claims and how to avoid mistakes that can cause a complaint to be dismissed even when the underlying facts of the claim are within coverage.

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Outline

  1. Benefits of triggering duty to defend
  2. Strategies for identifying available policies
  3. Identifying and pleading facts needed to trigger coverage
  4. Avoiding triggering exclusions
  5. Remedies for "under" and "over" pleading
  6. "Inartful" pleading and uncovered claims

Benefits

The panel will review these and other critical issues:

  • Are there ever situations where a policyholder would want to avoid coverage?
  • Are there ever situations where the plaintiff would want to avoid coverage?
  • What happens if the complaint fails to allege undisputed facts that, had they been alleged, would have triggered the insurer's duty to defend?
  • If an extrinsic fact is relevant to determining coverage, but not liability, can it be considered by an insurer when deciding the duty to defend?

Faculty

Schwartz, Evan
Evan Schwartz, Esq.
Founder and CEO
Schwartz, Conroy & Hack

Mr. Schwartz is a highly skilled litigator with more than 30 years of experience litigating insurance...  |  Read More

Attend on July 15

Early Discount (through 06/27/25)

Cannot Attend July 15?

Early Discount (through 06/27/25)

You may pre-order a recording to listen at your convenience. Recordings are available 48 hours after the webinar. Strafford will process CLE credit for one person on each recording. All formats include course handouts.

To find out which recorded format will provide the best CLE option, select your state:

CLE On-Demand Video