Our previews of the civil cases which the Illinois Supreme Court agreed to review in the closing days of the January term continue with Skaperdas v. Country Casualty Insurance Company, a decision from the Fourth District. Skaperdas poses a question of considerable potential importance to the insurance industry: does an insurance agent owe customers a duty of care in obtaining insurance?

Skaperdas arises from a bicycle accident. In early February 2008, plaintiff’s girlfriend was in an accident driving one of his vehicles. The plaintiff’s insurer covered the loss on the condition that the insurer would henceforth list the girlfriend as an additional driver on the policy. Shortly thereafter, the plaintiff allegedly had a conversation with his insurance agent, telling the agent to add both the girlfriend and her son to the policy. Effective February 2009, the plaintiff purchased a policy. The policy listed only the plaintiff as a named insured, but on the declarations page identified the driver as a "female, 30-64."

A few months later, the girlfriend’s son was seriously injured in a bicycle accident. Plaintiff and his girlfriend settled for the negligent driver’s policy limits, but then made a claim for underinsured motorist benefits under the plaintiff’s February 2009 policy. The defendant denied the claim on the grounds that neither the girlfriend nor her son were named insureds on the policy.

Plaintiff sued the defendants, alleging negligence against the insurance agent in obtaining the required policy, and seeking a declaration of insurance coverage with respect to the insurer. The defendants moved to dismiss, with the agent arguing that since he was an "agent," not a "broker," he owed the plaintiffs no duty of care in obtaining the requested insurance. The trial court granted both motions to dismiss.

The case turned on the proper interpretation of 735 ILCS 5/2-2201(a) of the Insurance Placement Liability Act:

An insurance producer, registered firm, and limited insurance representative shall exercise ordinary care and skill in renewing, procuring, binding, or placing the coverage requested by the insured or proposed insured.

The question was whether an "agent" was an "insurance producer." The Fourth District had first addressed the question in 2006 in Country Mutual Insurance Co. v. Carr. In Carr, the court had held that an insurance "producer" is defined by the Insurance Code as "a person required to be licensed under the laws of this State to sell, solicit, or negotiate insurance." 215 ILCS 5/500-10. The court held that there was no basis for distinguishing between agents and brokers under the statute, so agents owed the same duty brokers did.

Carr had been vacated by the Supreme Court in order to facilitate the parties’ settlement. But that didn’t mean that the Supreme Court disagreed with the holding, the Skaperdas court pointed out. The Fourth District held that its views hadn’t changed in the seven years since Carr, reaffirming its construction of Section 2-2201. Finding that the agent/broker distinction was irrelevant for purposes of liability, the Appellate Court reversed.

We expect Skaperdas to be decided in six to eight months.