From high-profile celebrity coverage battles to high-stakes state supreme court rulings, the new year brings with it the promise of litigation developments that will reshape specialty line insurance policy disputes.

The disputes may provide practitioners insight into common issues that can prove determinative in a coverage dispute, including notice requirements for circumstances that may give rise to a claim, the application of the capacity exclusion for directors or officers with multiple roles, and the scope of the bump-up exclusion.

Here, Law360 looks at a few of the top specialty line insurance cases to watch in 2026.
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Corporate governance cases very commonly allege individuals acting in multiple roles, said Luma Al-Shibib of Anderson Kill PC's insurance recovery group, who noted that an overbroad dual capacity exclusion conflicts with other policy language and case law regarding narrow exclusions and allocation for covered and uncovered claims or parties.

"If you just go back to the basic principles of contract interpretation, such a broad application of this capacity inclusion conflicts with those basic principles, because it's black-letter law that insurance policies are interpreted broadly in favor of coverage, and you have to apply exclusion strictly and narrowly," she said.

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