United States: Improper Cancellation Leaves Employer With Two Policies; Insurers Split Cost of Claim

Where a Missouri husband and wife operated a local bakery and each separately procured policies of workers’ compensation insurance for the business, cancellation of one of the policies nevertheless had to be in conformity with state law, held the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Since the so-called cancellation did not follow the statutory guidelines, the business was protected by two policies and, following a work-related death by one of the bakery employees in an auto accident, both insurers were responsible for one-half the claims costs (including death benefits). The Court added that there was no mutual mistake of fact as between the business and the insurance company who disputed that it owed one half the loss.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Employers Preferred Ins. Co. v. Hartford Accident and Indem. Co., 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 851 (8th Cir., Jan. 10, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 150.03.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see