H & S’s Insurance Coverage Group successfully tried a declaratory judgment action on behalf of National Grange and then successfully defended that judgment on appeal to the Connecticut Supreme Court. As the underlying tort claim was a death action, National Grange’s $1,000,000 liability limits were clearly at risk.

On appeal, the Supreme Court considered two significant issues. The first related to how National Grange deleted coverage from its garagekeeper’s liability policy for dealer plates that its insured, Carbone’s Auto Body, had insured. Having been requested by Carbone’s to delete that coverage, National Grange did so by issuing a form that explicitly deleted coverage for the dealer plates. Although National Grange did not use the talismanic word “endorsement” on this form, the Supreme Court held that the policy form and extraneous evidence of Carbone’s acknowledgement of the deletion of this coverage unambiguously supported National Grange’s coverage position.

The second issue related to whether the National Grange policy extended coverage to a used vehicle which Carbone’s had purchased and resold. The question was whether this sale was part of “operations necessary or incidental to a garage business.” Although the court conceded that this “necessary or incidental” language was broad, it concluded that, because Carbone’s had the option to insure “any auto” under the policy but declined to do so, it could not take advantage of the “necessary or incidental” language of the National Grange policy.