On February 5, 2026, a divided panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals determined that an insurer that refused to produce an auto insurance policy issued after the subject accident in response to a statutory insurance-disclosure request violated the statute and was required to pay the requesting party $100 per day for each day the policy was not disclosed beyond the statute’s 30-day period. This is the first published appellate decision in Colorado interpreting the state’s insurance disclosure statute, which is incredibly punitive.

The Colorado insurance disclosure statute, C.R.S. 10-3-1117, requires each insurer that “provides or may provide” commercial auto or personal auto liability coverage to pay all or a portion of a pending or prospective claim to provide to the claimant or their attorney within 30 calendar days after receiving a written disclosure request a statement setting forth the following information with regard to each known policy of insurance of the named insured, including excess or umbrella insurance, that is or may be relevant to the claim: (i) the name of the insurer; (ii) the name of each insured party, as the name appears on the declarations page of the policy; (iii) the limits of the liability coverage; and (iv) a copy of the policy.

Failure to comply with the statute subjects the insurer to a $100-per-day penalty, beginning on the 31st day after the disclosure request is received and accruing until the disclosure is provided. An insurer is also responsible for attorneys’ fees and costs incurred by a claimant in enforcing the non-disclosure penalty.

In Bohanan v. Esurance Property & Casualty Insurance Co., the claimant made an insurance disclosure request to the at-fault driver’s insurer, for “any insurance policies” that may provide liability coverage to the at-fault driver. The insurer refused to provide a policy it issued to a third party, on which the at-fault driver was an additional insured, after the subject accident, because it (correctly) determined the policy did not apply. Notably, the subject accident happened on the same day the policy was issued, albeit less than two hours prior. For that reason, it took the insurer more than 30 days to determine that the policy did not apply.

The claimant then sued the insurer to recover the statutory penalties, plus its attorneys’ fees and costs in compelling the penalties. The trial court concluded that the insurer violated the Colorado insurance disclosure statute because it found that whether the policy ultimately provided coverage was irrelevant to the insurer’s statutory insurance disclosure obligation. However, the court awarded only the statutory damages that accrued between the expiration of the 30-day statutory deadline and the date the insurer advised the claimant that the policy had been issued after the accident and therefore did not apply.

On appeal, the appellate court affirmed the trial court’s decision that the insurer violated the statute by not disclosing the policy and held that whether the policy may apply to the subject claim has no relevance to the disclosure obligation. In reaching its decision, the court of appeals noted that it took more than the statutory 30-day disclosure period for the insurer to determine the policy was inapplicable, such that during that period the policy “[wa]s or may [have been] relevant to the claim”.

The appellate court also reversed the trial court’s award on damages, determining the insurer was required to pay the claimant $100 per day for each day the insurer did not disclose the policy after the statutory deadline expired.

A single dissenting judge concluded that the phrase “may be relevant” used in the Colorado statute applies only when there is a plausible argument that the policy provides coverage.

Given the broad impact of the decision to insurers, and the split opinion, it would seem a virtual certainty that the decision will be appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court, the state’s highest state court.

If you have questions about how this impacts your business, please contact:

• Christian A. Cavallo
• Kevin P. Sullivan
• Evan D. Haggerty
• Or another member of our Global Insurance Services team.