to Procure Adequate Insurance and the Duty of the Insured to Read the Policy insurance coverage, employment litigation and products liability. 30 North Haddon Avenue, Suite 200 Haddonfield, New Jersey 08033 856.528.9811 Phone 856.354.6040 Fax klavelle@paschoslaw.com www.paschoslaw.com risk that inadequate insurance will be procured. When an insurance claim is denied or a policy's limit of liability is insufficient, the policyholder will look to the broker's actions to determine liability. When an insurance broker promises, or gives some affirmative assurance, that he will procure a policy of insurance under such circumstances as to lull the insured into the belief that such insurance has been affected, the law will impose upon the broker the obligation to perform the duty which he has assumed. number of theories including breach of contract and professional negligence. that is premised on a broker's failure to procure adequate insurance, the broker may raise the defense of the insured's negligence in failing to read the policy. However, this defense is not always successful. Liable to Insured Who Failed to Read Policy surance brokers cannot avoid liability for failure to procure the correct insurance by claiming that the insureds have a duty to read their insurance policies. unavailable to an insurance broker who asserts that the client failed to read his or her insurance policy. In signed but not read by the plaintiffs. Two months after the policy was issued Mr. Morrison died as a result of injuries from a car accident. After making a claim for life insurance, Mrs. Morrison received notice that the claim was denied because the application was improperly completed with respect to information regarding a driver license suspension. Mrs. Morrison filed a claim alleging that the agents the insurance. The agent countered with the fact that the Morrisons did not read the application. The Tennessee Supreme Court ad- dressed this defense stating that "[a]gents employed...for their expertise...may not claim any greater duty on their clients' part to anticipate and rectify their errors." The Court would not allow the agents to shield their own negligence with the fact that their clients didn't catch their mistakes. Similarly, in Aden v. Fortsh, "[i]t is the broker, not the insured, who is the expert and the client is entitled to rely on that professional's expertise in faithfully performing the very job he or she was hired to do." negligence principles could be applied in a professional malpractice case in which "the client's alleged negligence, although not necessarily the sole proximate cause of the harm, nevertheless contributed to or affected the professional's failure |