DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY THE COVER – ESPECIALLY WHEN ITS NAME IS “FOLLOW FORM”! By Cathy Trischan, CPCU, CRM, CIC, ARM, AU, AAI, CRIS, MLIS, TRIP Does this conversation sound familiar? Q: Is this covered under the Commercial Excess Liability Policy? A: Of course it is – it’s follow form! While this could be true, it is not necessarily the case. Excess Liability coverage is written to serve two purposes. It provides additional limits of insurance in the event of a catastrophic claim, and 4
it drops down to replace reduced or exhausted aggregate limits of underlying policies. Excess Liability is often written as a stand-alone coverage but could be part of a policy that includes both Excess Liability and Umbrella coverages. Unlike Commercial Umbrella, Excess Liability coverage does not typically intend to provide coverage that is broader in scope than the underlying policies. JUNE 2022
A true follow form Excess Liability Policy is subject to all of the terms and conditions of the underlying policies. A true follow form policy is only a few pages long, including the declarations page. It doesn’t take much space for a policy to convey the idea that it does everything the underlying policies do and simply provides additional limits. So why is the Excess Liability Policy, the one that includes the term follow
