Please find attached an article that discusses a little recognized right you have when claims arise that you tended to your insurer.
Specifically, as you know, insurers can do one of three things when responding to a claim from their contractor-insureds; they can affirm coverage, deny coverage, or they can issue a reservation of rights wherein they provide a defense but reserve the right to disclaim coverage later.
It is the latter choice that often arises in construction cases where, legitimately, there are covered and uncovered claims. In those instances, Massachusetts law provides that to properly protect the insured-contractors where the insurer has a sort of ‘one foot in’ and ‘one foot out‘ of coverage position, the contractor should be able to retain its own counsel and have the insurer pay for that defense.
This remains a relatively unknown right for insured contractors but there are important practical and strategic reasons why you should retain your own counsel (at insurer’s cost) to protect you in these instances.
The attached article addresses these important issues. Please let me know if you have any questions.
