Foreward: Employment Practies Liability Insurance and the Changing American Workplace

In the past fifteen years there has been substantial insurance coverage litigation as employers have attempted to secure coverage under their liability insurance program for employment-related practices liabilities. In recognition of this significant development of a body of law, and growing out of an American Bar Association Annual Meeting panel discussion in which I participated, the Western New England Law Review published a Symposium in 1996 entitled, Insurance Coverage of Employment Disputes. Employers continue to seek insurance coverage for these liabilities under their traditional liability insurance policies, but the situation has dramatically changed in the past several years. On the one hand, insurers have almost uniformly adopted exclusionary language in general liability policies to preclude coverage for these claims; on the other hand, approximately eighty insurance companies are now aggressively competing to market an insurance product designed specifically to cover this risk: Employment Practices Liability Insurance (‘EPLI‘). Therefore, only three years later it is necessary to revisit this area of law with another Symposium issue