The Eleventh Court of Appeals addressed the acknowledgment of a Named Driver Exclusion in Allied North America Ins. Brokerage of Texas, L.L.C. v. Diamond Pump & Transport, LLC and the Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, No. 11-13-00249-CV (Tex. App. – Eastland 8/31/2015). Allied, the insurance agent that procured a policy for Diamond from Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania (ICSOP), asserted that the named driver exclusion was ineffective because Diamond had not signed the endorsement. The court disagreed finding that the signature line on the endorsement was an “acknowledgement” of the fact that Diamond was bound by the terms of the endorsement. Even if the court were to agree with Allied’s claims that the endorsement was unapproved, the endorsement was not void, but voidable. The court found that Diamond had accepted the benefits of the policy as written, with the endorsement attached.
Allied also asserted that the trial court erred in concluding that Diamond was not negligent in failing to review its policy. However, the court found that the record supported the trial court’s findings and conclusions. The trial court concluded that Allied owed Diamond the duty to use reasonable diligence in attempting to place the requested insurance, the duty to inform Diamond promptly if unable to do so, and the duty to use reasonable care in obtaining coverage to meet Diamond’s needs. It also concluded that Allied breached that duty when it failed to notice the exclusion in the quotes from ICSOP, when it failed to compare the Diamond policy to the proposal from ICSOP, and when it failed to inform Diamond that the policy actually contained the exclusion.
