The Associated Press has released a copyrighted report that the Attorneys General of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi "are urging oil spill victims to consult lawyers before accepting final payments from a $20 billion compensation fund and agreeing not to sue BP." Associated Press, "4 State AGs Urge Spill Victims to Get Lawyers" (Washington Post Online, Saturday, December 18, 2010).
As was previously posted here, BP is requiring more of an agreement than simply not suing BP even if people experience additional harm after they sign BP's Release form. BP is requiring people and businesses who accept final payments to give Releases in which they agree also not to sue anyone else responsible for the Gulf Oil Well Disaster. (It appears that BP, far from ending all litigation, wants to pursue Indemnity and Contribution Claims against the potentially responsible parties who do not help to fund BP's settlements.) It is an open question, apparently, whether this Release of All Claims would include the Claimants' own Insurance Companies as well as the Insurance Companies of the parties released.
In the meantime, the website of the outgoing Florida Attorney General has not caught up with this latest development. However, that website contains a useful pdf presentation, "Deepwater Horizon: The OPA Claims Process and the Gulf Coast [BP's] Claims Facility".
Handling Catastrophe Claims and Exclusions which may apply to Catastrophe Claims, like those resulting from the Gulf Oil Well Disaster, are addressed by Dennis J. Wall under the available Case and Statute Law in Chapters 2 and 7, "CATClaims: Insurance Coverage for Natural and Man-Made Disasters" (Thomson Reuters West, 2010 Supplements).
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