Opinion
December 8, 1997
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Demarest, J.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.
This litigation began as a wrongful death action arising from the shooting death of the plaintiffs' decedent during a robbery at his business premises. The plaintiffs settled with the various defendants, including Bay Ridge Security Service (hereinafter Bay Ridge), the company responsible for providing security at the premises, which tendered to the plaintiffs the balance of its liability insurance policy after paying a very small portion of it to a person who was injured at the premises. The plaintiffs and Bay Ridge's insurance carrier National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, Pa. (hereinafter National Union) stipulated to leave to the court the question of whether National Union is liable pursuant to EPTL 5-4.3 for prejudgment interest in excess of the limits of Bay Ridge's liability coverage.
Absent a contractual provision to the contrary, a liability insurance carrier is not liable for prejudgment interest in excess of the limits of the policy ( see, Cleghorn v. Ocean Acc. Guar. Corp., 244 N.Y. 166; Matter of Russo v. Kemper Group, 146 A.D.2d 701). Because the policy in this case does not contain a provision requiring National Union to pay prejudgment interest in excess of the policy's limit of liability, the Supreme Court properly granted summary judgment to National Union.
Rosenblatt, J. P., Miller, Copertino and Goldstein, JJ., concur.