Law360 turned to McGuireWoods partner Andrew Barrios for analysis of a Colorado Supreme Court decision that held a company could not seek coverage from its umbrella and excess insurer for personal injury claims after its general liability insurer went out of business.
The ruling in A.R. Wilfley & Sons Inc. v. National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, PA, “places policyholders in a tough position,” Barrios said in the Sept. 24, 2026, article.
“The court is basically saying that the coverage tower that they purchased is only as strong as the weakest carrier,” Barrios added.
Barrios, a member of McGuireWoods’ Insurance Recovery Practice Group in the firm’s Chicago office, pointed out that interpretations of the policy language at issue could vary around the country. He said the policy language used by the umbrella and excess insurer in the case could reasonably be read to encompass any scheduled or unscheduled carrier — and that given this potential ambiguity, the court could have examined the parties’ reasonable expectations.
“If the court would have gotten to the reasonable expectations doctrine, the policyholder should have won,” Barrios said.
Barrios added, “The insurer is the one that drafted this language, and if [the umbrella and excess insurer] really wanted to exclude the insolvency risk, I think it very easily could have done so in just one sentence, and it didn’t.”