The Supreme Court of Alaska in Burnett v. Government Employees Insurance Company, 2017 WL 382648 (Alaska 2017) recently decided in a 3-2 decision that an insurer who voluntarily assumed the responsibility for cleaning up an oil spill on a third party’s property caused by its insured may become liable to that third party if it does not correctly handle the cleanup operations. GEICO argued that its obligations to its insured effectively negated any responsibility to third parties for improperly performing that clean up duty. The Court, over a strenuous dissent, rejected GEICO’s argument holding that an insurer who undertakes an independent obligation to a third party creates a new and independent duty to the third party claimant. GEICO was alleged…
