An excerpt from a post by Bernard Bell of Miller Friel PLLC

“Because insurers are facing a difficult time evading coverage for opioid claims, they are raising all sorts of non-contractual defenses to avoid coverage, including a ‘social insurance’ argument they have raised in the past.

“If past public health crises are prologue, these arguments will run something like this: Holding insurers responsible to pay for the costs of public services, including health care, will transform private party liability insurance into social insurance to underwrite public health epidemics caused by all manner of ills.  According to insurers, this will, at a minimum, increase the cost of liability insurance, and financially harm liability insurers, who have not priced this risk into their premiums.  Moreover, holding insurers liable to pay will shift costs away from those best equipped to address the social problem; the companies that supply the opioid products.

“These arguments are inconsistent with insurance law, which permits parties to freely contract to cover risks, and which place the burden on insurers to pay for insured risk, even if they made an error in underwriting.  Courts interpret insurance contracts according to their language and construe them against insurers if they are ambiguous, and in favor of an insureds’ reasonable expectations of coverage.

“Moreover, to the extent courts are inclined to look past contract language when construing insurance policies, the social arguments cut in favor of coverage, not against it, because  liability insurance is designed to perform risk management, and deterrence and compensation functions of insurance are important to the social functioning and ordering of society. … These social purposes are especially easy to grasp in the context of pharmaceutical companies that develop and bring to market countless products, including opioid pain medicine, that can relieve human pain and suffering. These companies bought and paid for liability insurance to manage the risks inherent in their business. They are entitled to enforce the promises made to them by those insurance companies that accepted their risks and their premiums.”