Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
Insurance: includes :
(i)
a risk distributing arrangement providing for compensation or replacement for damages or loss through the provision of a service or a benefit in kind;
(ii)
a contract of guaranty or suretyship entered into by the guarantor or surety as a business and not as merely incidental to a business transaction; and
(iii)
a plan in which the risk does not rest upon the person who makes an arrangement, but with a class of persons who have agreed to share the risk. See Utah Code 31A-1-301
Insured: means a person to whom or for whose benefit an insurer makes a promise in an insurance policy and includes:
Legal expense insurance: includes an arrangement that creates a reasonable expectation of an enforceable right. See Utah Code 31A-1-301
Liability insurance: includes :
(i)
vehicle liability insurance;
(ii)
residential dwelling liability insurance; and
(iii)
making inspection of, and issuing a certificate of inspection upon, an elevator, boiler, machinery, or apparatus of any kind when done in connection with insurance on the elevator, boiler, machinery, or apparatus. See Utah Code 31A-1-301
Life insurance: means :
(i)
insurance on a human life; and
(ii)
insurance pertaining to or connected with human life. See Utah Code 31A-1-301
Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
Person: includes :
(a)
an individual;
(b)
a partnership;
(c)
a corporation;
(d)
an incorporated or unincorporated association;
(e)
a joint stock company;
(f)
a trust;
(g)
a limited liability company;
(h)
a reciprocal;
(i)
a syndicate; or
(j)
another similar entity or combination of entities acting in concert. See Utah Code 31A-1-301
An insurer may not transact liability insurance and also issue legal expense insurance policies providing coverage for the expense of enforcing claims against third persons, unless the requirements of Subsection (3) are met and the commissioner is satisfied that the interests of policyholders of legal expense insurance policies are not endangered by potential conflicts of interest within the insurer.
(3)
Adequate precautions shall be taken to make sure that the handling of an insured‘s claim for legal assistance in enforcing a claim against a third person is not affected by the insurer’s actual or potential obligation as a liability insurer to pay the claim for the third person. These precautions may include:
(a)
a provision in the policy that claims against third persons shall be handled exclusively by attorneys selected by the insureds themselves rather than by the insurer, that no information about the case other than the name of the defendant and the nature of the claim may be made available to the insurer, and that the insurer may not interfere with the handling of the case; or
(b)
organizational separation between the legal expense and the liability insurance departments with respect to management, accounting, record keeping, and claims handling, with appropriate rules and procedures, satisfactory to the commissioner, to prevent the exchange of information between the two departments about details of cases.
