A determination by Pennsylvania's highest court that insurers can't cite state human trafficking laws to deny coverage to a hotel sued by trafficking victims showed a kind of judicial discipline that wasn't on display in a lower court ruling, insurance experts said.

Policyholder attorney Raymond A. Mascia Jr. of Anderson Kill PC told Law360 that the decision was noteworthy for an industry that knows the types of risks it's underwriting based largely on who the policyholder is.

Insurers are the ones responsible for evaluating the policies they sell, understanding the nature of a policyholder's business and the types of risk an insured faces, he said.

"This is a perfect example of a court correctly recognizing that the courts are not post-loss underwriters for the insurance companies to include exclusions in policies that they clearly could have drafted and excluded themselves," Mascia said.

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