Insurer Hiscox wants no part in defending a company called All Babies Are Safe over a child's alleged pool near-drowning.
On July 6, 2026, Hiscox Insurance Company went to federal court in Fort Myers, Florida, with a pointed request: let it walk away from a lawsuit against its own policyholder.
The policyholder is All Babies Are Safe, Inc., whose Hiscox application lists its main business as "fence installation and repair." The suit behind the coverage fight is serious. According to Hiscox's complaint, a Florida family alleges that on or about December 27, 2021, their minor child got into an unsecured swimming pool and nearly drowned. The complaint says the child is alleged to be, in the filing's words, "catastrophically brain damaged for the remainder of his life." The family sued the company in November 2025.
Here is the catch that makes this one worth a coverage professional's time: the claim is about a pool, and Hiscox says its policy was written for fences.
The Commercial General Liability policy (No. UDC-4889006-CGL-21) ran from July 7, 2021 to July 7, 2022, with $1 million per-occurrence and $2 million aggregate limits. It agrees to "pay those sums that the insured becomes legally obligated to pay as damages because of 'bodily injury' or 'property damage.'"
Hiscox points to three endorsements it says put the pool claim outside those terms.
The first, a Contractors Conditions and Exclusions-Florida endorsement, limits coverage to injury "caused by or results from the performance of the specified business operations described in the insured's application" - which the application defines as fence work.
The second, a Designated Ongoing Operations endorsement, excludes injury "arising out of the ongoing operations described in the Schedule," a list that expressly names "Amusement rides, pools or playgrounds."
The third, a Designated Professional Services endorsement, bars coverage for injury "caused by the rendering or failure to render any 'professional services'" - and the policy defines those services as "fence installation/repair."
The underlying suit does tie the company to the pool. It alleges the company should have kept the pool from being filled without "a means of access control, such as a pool fence or barrier." But Hiscox counters that this is a premises-liability claim about a filled, unfenced pool, not about any fence installation or repair the company actually performed. It also says property records show the pool property was owned by an individual, not the company.
For claims teams, the filing is a compact example of an insurer testing its defense duty at the outset by lining the underlying allegations up against its scope-of-operations and designated-exclusion language.
This is a newly filed complaint. The allegations have not been tested in court, and no judge has ruled on whether Hiscox must defend or indemnify the company.
