Trigger of Coverage for Latent Injury and Damage Claims State Law Survey

Summary

This survey addresses state laws on trigger of coverage for latent injury and damage claims under a commercial general liability policy, referring to the event or events that under the terms of the insurance policy determines whether an insurer must respond to a claim in a given set of circumstances. The survey covers all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. While the term trigger of coverage, or just trigger for short, is almost universally used in the latent claims context, the term appears nowhere in a commercial general liability policy. In general, five trigger theories emerged in determining this coverage issue: manifestation trigger, exposure trigger, injury-in-fact trigger, continuous trigger, and double trigger.