The Supreme Courtroom of New York granted the insured’s movement to compel the manufacturing of underwriting supplies associated to figuring out extra insureds. Church of St. Andrew v. Western World Ins. Co., 2025 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 7018 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Aug. 5, 2025).
The Church of St. Andrew (“church”) retained GC Options to carry out roofing work at its premises. The church required GC Options to call it as an extra insured underneath its normal legal responsibility coverage. GC Options offered a Certificates of Insurance coverage naming the church as an extra insured underneath the coverage issued by Western World.
Whereas engaged on the roof, an worker of GC Options fell to his dying. A wrongful dying motion was commenced by the decedent’s property in opposition to the church. The church tendered its protection and indemnification to Western World. Western World disclaimed protection, asserting that the church didn’t qualify as an extra insured underneath the coverage.
The church sued and served a set of interrogatories and doc calls for, requesting manufacturing of the underwriting tips governing extra insured endorsements. Western World refused to provide the knowledge requested. The church moved to compel Western World to establish and produce the parts of its underwriting tips that pertained to extra insured protection.
Western World took the place that the church didn’t meet its inside standards for protection but refused to reveal the very standards it admitted set requirements for protection eligibility. Below such circumstances, the church was entitled to probe how Western World interpreted and utilized the language within the endorsement in real-world underwriting follow.
Prior New York case legislation held that underwriting supplies have been discoverable the place they bore upon the scope of protection and the appliance of coverage language, even absent a declare of ambiguity. Right here, the church did to hunt speculative or broad-ranging discovery however as an alternative requested restricted parts of Western World’s underwriting tips that pertained particularly to the way it outlined and evaluated extra insured protection. Such supplies have been immediately related to the core dispute over whether or not the church certified for protection underneath the endorsement and whether or not Western World’s interpretation of the endorsement aligned with its personal inside requirements for protection eligibility.
Subsequently, the church’s movement to compel was granted. Western World was ordered to provide parts of its underwriting tips that pertained to extra insured protection underneath its industrial legal responsibility insurance policies.
