Simon Glairy is a distinguished authority in the insurance and Insurtech sectors, renowned for his ability to untangle the complexities of AI-driven risk assessment and high-stakes liability. His expertise is frequently sought when the rigid language of a policy meets the messy, tragic realities of the physical world. In our conversation today, we focus on a recent legal maneuver by Hiscox Insurance Company, which is currently seeking a federal court ruling to step away from a catastrophic brain injury claim. We explore the profound implications of how a business defines its core operations and how specific endorsements can serve as an immovable shield for insurers when a policyholder’s activities stray from their initial application.
When a business application specifically defines its operations as “fence installation and repair,” how does that limit their legal protection in a catastrophic scenario like a pool-related injury?
The moment a business limits its scope to “fence installation and repair” on an application, they are essentially drawing a tight circle around their legal safety net. In the case of All Babies Are Safe, Inc., this definition is the pivot point for Hiscox’s refusal to defend a claim involving a child who was “catastrophically brain damaged” on December 27, 2021. When that child slipped into an unsecured pool, the sensory details of the tragedy—the silence of the water and the permanent damage that followed—collided with the cold, hard text of Policy No. UDC-4889006-CGL-21. The insurer argues that their $1 million per-occurrence coverage only applies to the specific act of working on fences, not the broader premises-liability of an open pool. It is a chilling reminder that a specific business definition can be the difference between a fully funded defense and facing a life-altering lawsuit entirely alone.
How do specific endorsements, such as the “Designated Ongoing Operations” or the “Contractors Conditions and Exclusions,” serve as a safeguard for insurers against claims that fall outside a policyholder’s primary trade?
These endorsements function as ironclad exclusions that prevent “scope creep” from turning a simple policy into an all-encompassing liability blanket. Hiscox points to the Contractors Conditions and Exclusions-Florida endorsement to argue that the injury must result specifically from fence work as described in the original application. Furthermore, the Designated Ongoing Operations endorsement is particularly devastating for the policyholder here because it explicitly names “pools” as an excluded category in the schedule. When Hiscox walked into federal court in Fort Myers on July 6, 2026, they used these documents to show that they never calculated the risk for pool-related accidents, only for the hazards of installing or repairing barriers. These clauses allow a claims team to systematically deconstruct a lawsuit, proving that the $2 million aggregate limit was never intended to cover a scenario where a company allegedly allowed a pool to be filled without access controls.
Given the tragic nature of a child suffering permanent brain damage, how does a claims team balance the emotional weight of the situation with the strict contractual reality of premises-liability versus service-based claims?
The human cost of this incident is staggering, with a family filing suit in November 2025 for a child who will require care for the remainder of his life, but an insurer’s duty is dictated by the contract, not the severity of the suffering. Hiscox’s strategy relies on the Designated Professional Services endorsement, which limits their liability to injuries caused by the actual “rendering or failure to render” the specific services of fence installation. They are making a sharp distinction between a contractor making a mistake while fixing a gate and a broader premises-liability issue where an unfenced pool sits on property owned by a third-party individual rather than the company. The harrowing sight of an unsecured water hazard is powerful in a courtroom, but the insurer must focus on whether those elements fall within the “professional services” definition provided in the policy. By aligning the family’s allegations against the scope-of-operations language, the claims team is attempting to prove that the company’s presence at the pool didn’t automatically trigger coverage for everything that happened on that property.
What is your forecast for how this intersection of specific business definitions and broad liability claims will evolve in the insurance industry?
I anticipate a shift toward much more granular, real-time risk monitoring where the “specified business operations” are no longer just static words on a page from 2021. As Insurtech evolves, we will likely see policies that use geofencing and site-specific data to alert insurers the moment a fence contractor is operating on a property with a high-risk feature like an unshielded pool. This would allow for dynamic endorsements to be added or excluded on the fly, potentially preventing the kind of coverage gap we see in the Hiscox and All Babies Are Safe dispute. While this technology might have helped clarify the $1 million per-occurrence limits before a disaster occurred, it also means businesses will have to be incredibly disciplined about how they describe their work. We are heading toward a future where the “Designated Professional Services” will be verified by digital footprints, leaving very little room for the interpretative legal battles that currently dominate the federal court system.
