Three Key Insurance Law Decisions From 2020

Given all the challenges of 2020, it would be easy to overlook some of the interesting insurance law developments during the last 12 months.

The three legal decisions highlighted below from this past year involve dispute points in insurance law that have recurring importance to policyholders’ risk management, in-house legal and treasury departments.

Ransomware attacks have been unrelenting during the pandemic and aimed at some of the most crucial sectors, including health care. As the New York Times reported recently, cyberattacks on hospitals and health systems “have become their own kind of pandemic.”

While ransomware demands have exploded, they are not the only harm inflicted by these attacks. A decision from January indicates that policyholders may have insurance coverage across an array of insurance products for losses beyond ransom payments.

In Nat’l Ink & Stitch, LLC, v. State Auto Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. (D. Md. Jan. 23, 2020), the court held that a policyholder that suffered serious damage and losses from a ransomware attack was entitled to all-risk property coverage for lost data, lost software, and a dysfunctional computer system and hardware.