McGowan Allied Specialty Insurance announced a strategic realignment of sales territories within its in-house team designed to enhance services, improve
regional coverage, and ensure a more tailored experience for clients across the country.
The Ohio-based company said that by reallocating territories among its sales producers, it is stren
gthening its ability to “respond efficiently to client needs while maintaining deep knowledge of regional markets.”
The newly assigned territories are now in effect, the company said.
MASI provides entertainment and amusement insurance solutions for amusement parks, waterparks and family entertainment centers..
Navigators Insurance Co., a Hartford excess insurer, cannot escape a Georgia utility company’s
argument that the utility is an additional insured on a policy, after a 2018 gas explosion in Georgia that left three women severely injured.
The decision by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld a federal district court ruling in Indiana, which had found against Navigators in 2024 on th
e “additional insured” question but in favor of the insurer on bad faith and breach of fiduciary duty claims.
The crux of Navigators’ argument was that Atlanta Gas Light Co. can be an additional insured only as long as a gas-line marking company faces liability for its actions in Georgia lawsuits brought by the injured women.
“But the policy is devoid of such language, and we will not ‘supply omitted terms while professing to construe the contract,'” the appellate panel of judges wrote in the Jan. 22 opinion.
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Besides adding new light to the definition of additional insured, the decision also lays out how clear Indiana’s insurance statutes and case law are on bad-faith allegations—a clarity that not all states’ laws provide.
The trouble came after USIC failed to mark a gas line in Homerville, a town of about 2,500 peop
le, 40 miles from the border with Florida. A boring company digging in 2018 struck the line, causing the release of natural gas into a sewer line, the court explained. Soon a
fter, the nearby Coffee Corner café exploded, severely injuring three women and heavily damaging the shop. The incident made national news reports. A video c
lip from NBC’s Today show can be seen here. An Insurance Journal report about the incident is here.
After mediation, the injured women settled with the line-marking company. Atlanta Gas was not able to come to an agreement with them, and the women sued Atlanta Gas in Georgia state court.