Indemnification Necessary Despite Procuring Insurance

A contractor providing insurance to an owner that includes a provision that the policy will be primary may think he has already prevented exposure from any indemnification clause in their contract with the owner as the owner has already been made whole from future liability.  However, the underlying contract language may include additional clauses that render the procuring of liability insurance as a separate and unrelated obligation from the obligation to indemnify and hold harmless.  Thus, owners, even with procured insurance from a contractor, may still seek indemnification, even from the party that provided the original insurance.

According to New York State Department of Transportation v. North Star Painting Company, Inc., 2018 WL 3321495, 2018 N.Y. Slip Op. 05087 (4th Dep’t July 6, 2018) a contractor that procures a policy with a “policy as primary” clause was ruled to have not discharged its duty to provide indemnification, and thus, a conditional order for indemnification of an owner by the contractor who already provided an insuring policy was upheld.

In North Star Painting, Inc., a contractor to the State of New York Department of Transportation agreed to indemnify and hold harmless the State of New York from claims resulting from the work stated in the contract.  However, the contract further required the contractor to procure an owners and contractors protective liability (OPCL) policy to insure the State of New York.  Within the policy procured by the contractor, the coverage under the OCPL policy was to be primary and, further, the insurer would not seek contribution from other insurance available to plaintiff.  As the policy provides primary coverage, one would think that the procuring of insurance has already fulfilled the indemnification obligations of the contractor.

However, such a policy does not prevent an owner from still seeking indemnification when the underlying contract specifically exempts the procuring of insurance from fulfilling or discharging the indemnification requirement.  In North Star Painting, Inc., the  underlying contract included a clause that the indemnification and hold harmless clauses shall not “be deemed limited or discharged by the enumeration or procurement of any insurance for liability for damages imposed by law” upon the contractor.

When complete, clear and unambiguous, a contract must be enforced according to its plain meaning. The Court determined that the clause prevented the procurement of insurance by the contractor as a means to have already fulfilled or discharged their obligation to indemnify the owner.  As such, the Court found that NYSDOT was entitled to the conditional order of contractual and common-law indemnification against the contractor.

As this case demonstrates, there is nuance between the procurement of insurance and indemnification.  Even when one procures insurance for the other party in the contract, and even as per the contract, one may still be potentially separately obligated for indemnification.  Therefore, experienced counsel should be consulted regarding how to diminish or prevent an entity’s additional exposure through indemnification even when an insurance policy has already been procured for the other contracting party.

Thanks to Jonathan J. Pincus for his contribution to this post.