Beware Of "Absolute" Insurance Policy Wording

In July 2009, a partner in a prominent law firm authored an editorial that appeared in the firm’s monthly digest of recent appellate decisions. The editorial discussed "absolute exclusions."

Such exclusions have been deemed "absolute" because they even exclude claims that are remotely—but not directly—related to the specific acts targeted in the exclusion.

The effect of such language is to defeat coverage in situations where it could otherwise be reasonably expected that coverage would apply.

The ultimate—and troubling—theme of the attorney’s article was the following concluding statement.