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Crum & Forster seeks ruling it owes no defense to Clayton Homes
Crum & Forster filed the declaratory judgment action on Aug. 17, 2026, seeking a court finding of no duty to defend or indemnify Clayton as an additional insured under its Lone Star policy.
Crum & Forster is asking a Texas federal judge to determine it does not have a duty to defend or indemnify Clayton Homes in a wheel injury lawsuit tied to a mobile home trailer crash, Insurance Business reports.
The insurer filed its original declaratory judgment complaint on Aug. 17, 2026 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, seeking a ruling that Clayton Homes, doing business as CMH Manufacturing, Inc., is not covered as an additional insured.
The coverage dispute traces to an underlying Oklahoma case describing a Dec. 5, 2023 incident in which a tractor-trailer hauling a mobile home unit under Clayton’s ownership or maintenance allegedly required an escort vehicle because the load was oversized, according to the filing.
In the underlying complaint, a tire and wheel allegedly came off the trailer at highway speed and struck the escort driver’s car, totaling it and causing substantial bodily injury, with claims alleging Clayton’s negligence in maintaining or inspecting the trailer and in hiring the driver and trucking company.
Crum & Forster’s connection is through a commercial general liability policy it issued to Lone Star Wheel Components, which had a $1 million each-occurrence limit and included a vendor endorsement potentially extending coverage to certain outside businesses, the report says. The insurer argues the vendor endorsement does not apply because the underlying allegations do not claim that Lone Star’s products were distributed or sold in the regular course of Clayton’s business, and it points to exclusions as additional barriers, Insurance Business reports.