Starr accuses Hartford of refusing to pay $5-million project limit

Two insurers are fighting over $5 million, and the answer turns on whether fixing a streetlight counts as a single "project." 

Starr Indemnity & Liability Company sued Hartford Casualty Insurance Company in federal court in North Carolina on September 3, alleging that Hartford wrongly refused to pay a $5 million limit toward a confidential injury settlement, leaving Starr to cover more than its share. 

Both carriers insured the same contractor, Pike Engineering. According to the complaint, the underlying case began with a pedestrian struck by an SUV at a Chapel Hill crosswalk on December 31, 2021. The pedestrian’s family sued the contractor and the utility, Duke Energy, alleging that nearby streetlights were not working and that the contractor had failed to fix them under a work order the utility issued in August 2021. That case settled confidentially in 2025. 

Pike carried a stack of policies, with Hartford’s excess layer sitting below Starr’s. Starr’s policy says it does not kick in "unless and until" the insurance beneath it has "paid or is obligated to pay the full amount of the limits." 

Here is where the money sits. Hartford’s excess policy carries a $5 million "Per Project Aggregate Limit." An endorsement says that limit "applies to each single ‘project’" the policy covers and defines a "project" as a "jobsite" - a term the policy never spells out. 

Starr says the streetlight job was one project, so Hartford’s per-project limit should apply and be paid in full before Starr owes a cent. According to the filing, Hartford saw it differently. Starr says Hartford argued that the per-project limit did not apply, that only its "general aggregate" limit was in play, and that the general aggregate was already used up, exhausted "by the payment of other claims." 

Starr wants the court to rule that the per-project limit applies. It is also asking Hartford to repay it - through claims for contribution and subrogation, the legal routes an insurer uses to recover money it says another insurer should have paid - seeking $5 million plus attorneys’ fees and costs. Starr says it overpaid the settlement because, it alleges, Hartford would not fund any part of it. 

For claims teams, it is a familiar fight with real money on it: how a per-project limit lines up against a general aggregate limit when several policies stack together, and what counts as a "jobsite" when the insured work is a one-off repair rather than a construction site. 

The allegations have not been tested in court, and no judge has ruled.