Without The Bellefonte Presumption, Reinsurer Denied Partial Summary Judgment

You remember Bellefonte, right? Bellefonte Reinsurance. Co. v. The Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 903 F.2d 910 (1990). When the New York Court of Appeals in Global Reinsurance Corp. of Am. v. Century Indemn. Co., 30, N.Y.3d 508 (2017), took the wind out of reliance on Bellefonte as authority for the stated limits in a facultative certificate capping a reinsurer's liability, courts were required to review the actual language of the reinsurance contract and interpret that language according to the standard rules of contract interpretation without reliance on any presumptions. One of those cases went back from the Second Circuit to the district court to interpret the operative language of the underlying umbrella policies because the following clause in the facultative certificates required that the reinsurer follow the cedent's liability for defense costs unless the underlying umbrella policies were inconsistent with the facultative certificates.