Insurance Law Lesson 73: The Sistership Exclusion

Another of the standard CGL business risk exclusions bars liability coverage for claims arising out of the recall of the insured’s product. This is called the “sistership exclusion.”

The what?

The word “sistership” does not appear anywhere in the policy. The moniker comes from the concept of a recall. A recall is not because of damage caused by the units being recalled. Rather, some other unit(s) malfunctioned and, as a result, all units are being recalled to prevent potential damage.

One industry where they really do not like malfunction is the airline industry. If an airplane displays a problem, it is imperative to inspect and make sure that others won’t suffer an in-flight catastrophe. Accordingly, when a critical problem is detected in a plane, all of the plane’s “sisterships” will be grounded until they are cleared of the problem.

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