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Lloyd’s insurers countersue Kanye West over St Pablo tour claim

By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 31 August 2017

Insurers from Lloyd’s Of London have filed a countersuit against Kanye West, who went legal earlier this month in relation to the cancelled dates on his 2016 ‘St Pablo’ tour. The insurers accuse the rapper of failing to cooperate with their investigators, while also claiming that there are “substantial irregularities in Mr West’s medical history”.

As previously reported, West abandoned his US tour last November after erratic behaviour at a couple of his shows, including a ten minute rant that took aim at Hillary Clinton, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Drake and Mark Zuckerberg, among others. He was subsequently admitted to the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital Center, with one news agency stating at the time that “the decision to hospitalise West was for his own health and safety”.

West’s lawsuit earlier this month claimed that it was his doctors who advised him to end his tour prematurely in order to receive treatment following a psychological breakdown. The rapper and his company Very Good Touring Inc then claimed on the insurance policies that had been taken out for the tour, citing this medical guidance as the reason for cancellation. But the Lloyd’s based insurers are yet to pay up, despite – West’s lawyers argued – their client submitting to the independent medical examination required by his insurance policy.

But in the countersuit filed this week, the insurers claim that West has not fully cooperated with the people they appointed to investigate the insurance claim. One thing seemingly being investigated is any possible drug consumption, because the ‘St Pablo’ insurance policies exclude any losses directly resulting from the use of illegal drugs or the impact of prescription medication not used as prescribed.

The legal filing made by the insurers in the LA courts this week said that specifics weren’t being included in the countersuit to protect West “from public disclosure of details of his private life”, but the litigation does allege that the insurers’ investigators have found “substantial irregularities in Mr West’s medical history”.

When West filed his litigation, his lawyer Howard King said that insurers like those trading via Lloyd’s Of London have business models that thrive “on conducting unending ‘investigations’ of bona fide coverage requests, stalling interminably, running up their insured’s costs, and avoiding coverage decisions based on flimsy excuses”.

Now responding to the countersuit, King told reporters that the Lloyd’s insurers simply didn’t “want to honour a legitimate claim but can’t find a factual basis to deny” payment.