In an unpublished decision, the Appellate Division recently enforced an insurer’s duty to indemnify and defend a condominium association for damages resulting from an occurrence during the policy period even though they were not discovered until after the policy had expired.
 
Steinbauer v. East Coast Acquisitions, LLC, 2007 WL 2593007 (App. Div. September 11, 2007).
In March 2003, Ramapo Ridge Condominium Association Phase II (“the association”) discovered that a pipe had burst and flooded an abandoned unit. After the municipality declared the unit unsafe, Sirius American Insurance Co. (“Sirius”), which insured the association under a property damage and general liability policy effective from July 2002 through July 2003, undertook to repair and remediate the damaged unit, which was thereafter acquired by East Coast Acquisitions (“East Coast”) at a foreclosure sale. After additional repairs and upgrades, East Coast conveyed the unit to the plaintiff in July 2004. When plaintiff’s plumber entered a common area crawl space to install a dryer vent line, he discovered mold. Ultimately, in November 2004, plaintiff sued East Coast and the association, among others.

The association demanded defense and indemnification from Sirius. All parties agreed that the damages were caused by the 2003 flooding. Nonetheless, Sirius declined coverage, arguing that its indemnification was only triggered if the property damage occurred during the policy term and the third party sued during the policy term. It relied on the following policy language:
 
COVERAGE E [-] LIABILITY TO OTHERS

A. We pay for the benefit of the insureds, up to the applicable limit(s) of liability (See Part II D) shown in the Declarations, those sums that insureds become legally liable to pay as damages because of bodily injury or property damage insured here.
Such bodily injury or property damage must:

• Occur during the policy term, and
• Be caused by an occurrence that takes place within the applicable coverage territory: See General Conditions 6.

Occurrence
Occurrence means an accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same general harmful conditions.
 
Property Damage
Property damage means the following, caused by a covered occurrence:

• Direct physical injury to tangible property, including loss of use of such property (the loss of use is deemed to occur at the time of such direct physical injury).
• Loss of use of tangible property that is not physically injured: all such loss of use is deemed to occur at the time of the occurrence causing the loss.
 
The court rejected Sirius’s argument. Because the occurrence (the flooding) occurred within the policy period, the court held Sirius liable for all resultant damages, even remediation of the crawl space mold that was not discovered until after the end of the policy period.
 
 http://blog.njeifs.com/2007/10/appellate_division_enforces_te.html
 
# # #
 
Pure Air Control Services
 
1-800-422-7873