Mississippi Law Firm Sues Cyber Insurer Over Coverage for Scam

p Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information people and ideas Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information news and insight around the world ppAmericas1 212 318 2000 ppEMEA44 20 7330 7500 ppAsia Pacific65 6212 1000 pp Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information people and ideas Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information news and insight around the world ppAmericas1 212 318 2000 ppEMEA44 20 7330 7500 ppAsia Pacific65 6212 1000 ppA Mississippi law firm is suing its cyber insurer alleging the carrier wrongfully denied coverage for a roughly 150000 loss stemming from an elaborate email schemeppGore Kilpatrick Dambrino PLLC was duped into wiring funds to an account controlled by scammers posing as representatives from a company that was dissolved years earlier the law firm said in a suit filed July 11 in the US District Court for the Northern District of MississippippThe firm in May 2024 received emails from someone falsely claiming to be David Casteel of Brooks Machinery Inc seeking help collecting debt from an equipment company the complaint said GKD then received a fraudulent check that initially cleared but was later dishonored after the firm wired 158850 to an account specified by the imposter ppSpinnaker Insurance Co and firms providing underwriting and other servicesCowbell Cyber Inc and Cowbell Insurance Agency LLCdenied coverage for the incident claiming it failed to meet the policys definition for a covered social engineering loss according to the law firms complaint ppThe insurer defendants first said an imposter wasnt involved in the cyber incident They then argued the imposter and fraudster were one and the same even though imposter isnt explicitly defined in the policy the law firm saidppThis is a nonsensical interpretation of the word imposter and is a selfserving and contrived interpretation of the Policy for the sole purpose of avoiding coverage the suit saidppGKD alleges breach of contract bad faith denial gross negligence postclaim underwriting and fraud It is also seeking the amount that it was defrauded in damages along with interest at the highest legal rate and punitive damagesppSpinnaker and Cowbell didnt immediately respond to requests for comment Spinnaker is a subsidiary of insurtech provider Hippo Holdings IncppSpinnaker and Cowbell were also hit with a suit in February from a law firm in Washington state over coverage for a security breach where hackers allegedly impersonated the firms clientppChapman Lewis Swan PLLC represents GKDppThe case is Gore Kilpatrick Dambrino PLLC v Spinnaker Ins Co ND Miss 425cv00107 complaint filed 71125ppTo contact the reporter on this story Benjamin Hernandez at bhernandezbloombergindustrycomppTo contact the editor responsible for this story Michael Smallberg at msmallbergbloombergindustrycompp AIpowered legal analytics workflow tools and premium legal business news pp Log in to keep reading or access research tools p