Duty to Defend in Litigation: Policyholder and Insurer Strategies After Hartford v. Instagram (2026 Edition)

Bharat Varadachari, Partner | HeplerBroom LLC

Bharat Varadachari is a partner in HeplerBroom’s St. Louis office whose practice centers on defending insurance companies in extracontractual litigation. He tries complex business cases and handles bad-faith litigation and general insurance defense, alongside employment, trucking and commercial vehicle, products and premises liability, construction defect, toxic tort, and maritime matters.

• Education & Credentials

He earned his J.D. from St. Louis University School of Law in 1999, together with a master’s in health administration from the St. Louis University School of Public Health the same year, and a B.A. in History, with a minor in Microbiology, from the University of Illinois in 1994. He is admitted in Missouri and Illinois, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and in the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri and the Southern District of Illinois.

• Recognition & Leadership

He holds an AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell and has been named Best Lawyers in America for 2024 through 2027. Missouri Lawyers Media recognized him as a co-recipient of the Top Defense Wins of 2024 and of the 7th Best Defense Verdict in Missouri for 2013. He was listed in Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers in 2023 and as a Rising Star from 2010 to 2012, was nominated for the Lon Hocker Award in 2006, and was named to St. Louis Small Business Monthly’s Top 100 People to Know to Succeed in Business in 2024.

• Professional Involvement

He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates and serves on the Transportation Committee of the Claims & Litigation Management Alliance. He served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Defense Trial Attorneys from 2023 to 2025, as President of the St. Louis County Bar Association from 2023 to 2024, and as President of The Lawyers Association of St. Louis from 2018 to 2019. He sits on the Missouri Bar Association Board of Governors and the Board of Directors of the Missouri Organization of Defense Lawyers, where he is Vice Chair of the Legislative Committee, and belongs to Illinois Defense Counsel, the Inns of Court, and the Missouri and Illinois Trucking Associations.

• Experience

His insurance work includes presenting “Extra-Contractual – It’s Our Turn!” at the CLM Annual Conference in Orlando in 2016, speaking at the National Claims and Litigation Management Conference in 2024 and 2023, addressing commercial general liability claims in Chicago in 2020, and securing a defense verdict for an insurer in an uninsured motorist case in which the jury placed 100% of the fault on the co-defendant. He has written for Claims Management Magazine, CLM’s Litigation Management Magazine, and The Insurance Journal, including a 2009 article on how the Missouri and Illinois collateral source rules treat bodily injuries differently.

His trial record includes defense verdicts for a national hotel chain, a dairy facing a $15 million demand in a Peoria County wrongful death case, a motorcycle dealership, and trucking companies in catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, including a 2024 trucking trial and a 2025 premises liability verdict.

Arthur R. Armstrong, Partner | Barnes & Thornburg LLP

Arthur R. Armstrong is a partner in Barnes & Thornburg’s Philadelphia office who focuses his practice on representing corporate policyholders in highstakes insurance recovery matters. He advises companies in disputes with primary and excess insurers under general liability, professional liability, D&O, cyber, tech E&O, representations and warranties, political risk, property, and crime policies.

• Education & Credentials

He received his J.D. from Temple University Beasley School of Law in 2006, where he was on the Dean’s List and received the Albert H. Friedman Award, and his B.A. from Saint Joseph’s University in 2003, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

• Recognition & Leadership

He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America for Insurance Law in 2025 and 2027, and was named a Pennsylvania Rising Star by Super Lawyers every year from 2014 to 2023. Law360 featured him in an August 2026 Q&A on cyberinsurance sublimit disputes and quoted him on the federal government’s cyber pullback in December 2025.

• Professional Involvement

He joined Barnes & Thornburg in April 2026 as part of a 12-lawyer insurance recovery group that moved from Lowenstein Sandler, where he had been a partner in the insurance recovery group since October 2025. He practiced at Reed Smith before that. He co-authored “Ruling Upholds $11M Arbitration Award, Offers D&O Lessons” for Law360 in December 2025, and spoke in October 2026 at the DAC Beachcroft Casualty and Crisis Management Conference on panels covering political violence coverage and evolving claims strategies to combat fraud, manage litigation funding, and obtain risk transfer.

• Experience

He represents a Fortune 500 financial services company in a coverage action against six representations and warranties insurers, asserting breach of contract, declaratory judgment, and bad faith claims and seeking at least $135 million in remaining limits under a $300 million tower purchased for a $2.35 billion fintech acquisition. He regularly advises businesses to hit by ransomware attacks, data breaches, and other cyber events on first- and third-party coverage, including ransom payments, remediation costs, business interruption losses, government investigation defense costs and penalties, class action litigation, and demands from affected business partners.

Lisa Reilly, Associate | Barnes & Thornburg LLP

Lisa Reilly is an associate in the Litigation Department and the Insurance Recovery and Counseling Practice Group in Barnes & Thornburg’s Philadelphia office. She has managed a full caseload of insurance coverage matters, and before joining the firm she represented regional and national multi-line insurance carriers in complex coverage and bad faith matters involving excess liability, general liability, ERISA disability, and other policies.

• Education & Credentials

She earned her J.D., cum laude, from Penn State Law in 2021, where she attended on a full scholarship and served as Managing Editor of the Penn State Law Review, and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ryerson University in 2018. She is admitted in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and before the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of Pennsylvania and the District of New Jersey.

• Recognition & Leadership

She graduated cum laude and served as Managing Editor of the Penn State Law Review. She was also named a Pennsylvania Rising Star in Insurance Coverage by Super Lawyers in 2025.

• Professional Involvement

She is co-editor of the 24th, 25th, and 26th editions of Insurance Bad Faith in Pennsylvania, the American Lawyer Media treatise reviewing the year’s major bad faith rulings for attorneys, judges, and claims professionals. She also authored “The Feud Is Getting Old: Why the Oil and Gas Industry Should Lobby for the Federal Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing Under the Safe Drinking Water Act” in volume 125 of the Penn State Law Review.

• Experience

She litigates coverage matters primarily in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and has additional experience in federal and state courts in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, and South Carolina. Before entering private practice, she clerked for the Honorable Mary S. Much of the Family Court of the State of Delaware from 2021 to 2022 and served as a legal intern with the Bucks County, Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Office.

SESSION 1 – Policyholder Strategy: Triggering and Keeping Defense After Hartford v. Instagram | Arthur R. Armstrong & Lisa Reilly | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

This session shows policyholder counsel how to trigger and preserve the duty to defend under commercial general liability and specialty policies. It examines how the Hartford v. Instagram court treated negligence allegations describing deliberate design conduct, and what that means for any company whose products involve intentional design choices. Attorneys will learn how courts apply the occurrence requirement, how to use the eight-corners and extrinsic-evidence split, and how to answer a reservation of rights letter without waiving coverage arguments or inviting a reimbursement claim. The session also covers when a reservation creates a conflict entitling the policyholder to independent (Cumis) counsel, and how to audit an insurance program for AI and cyber coverage gaps. Attendees will leave with a complaint-stage coverage preservation checklist, a reservation of rights response protocol, and a framework for evaluating emerging tech-related triggers.

BREAK | 1:00pm – 1:10pm

SESSION 2 – Insurer Strategy: Defend and File, or Pay for the Refusal | Bharat Varadachari | 1:10pm – 2:10pm

This session gives insurer counsel and claims professionals a framework for making and defending the coverage decision. It examines Hartford v. Instagram as a roadmap for occurrence defenses, when insurers can and cannot rely on extrinsic evidence, and how to draft a reservation of rights specific and timely enough to preserve defenses without becoming a constructive denial. It then maps what a wrongful refusal costs a carrier, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. That includes Illinois estoppel, bad faith exposure beyond policy limits, and stipulated judgments under Morris agreements. The session closes with how carriers can respond to independent counsel demands and apply the new AI and BIPA exclusions. Attendees will leave with a decision protocol for defending, reserving, filing for declaratory relief, or denying, and a state-by-state view of wrongful-refusal exposure.