Key Takeaway
New York court ruling on insurance policy declaration pages: not hearsay under CPLR 4518 and 4539, plus authentication requirements for electronic records.
Brand Med. Supply, Inc. v Infinity Ins. Co., 2016 NY Slip Op 50738(U)(App. Term 2d Dept. 2016)
(1) “In support of its defense of exhaustion of the policy limits, defendant unsuccessfully attempted to have the applicable insurance policy’s declaration page, which set forth, among other things, the coverage limits of the policy (see e.g. Matter of Government Empls. v Ally, 106 AD3d 736 ; Matter of State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v Gray, 68 AD3d 1002 ), admitted into evidence. Upon a review of the record, we find that the Civil Court erred in excluding the insurance policy declaration page from evidence. Defendant was not required to lay a CPLR 4518 (a) foundation for the declaration page, since a declaration page is not hearsay, but rather, as part of an insurance contract, it “has independent legal significance and need only be authenticated to be admissible””
(2) “Here, the testimony of defendant’s senior no-fault representative sufficiently identified the document as an accurate representation of the declaration page which defendant maintained electronically (see CPLR 4539 ; Kaliontzakis v Papadakos, 69 AD3d 803). Furthermore, in describing defendant’s procedure for generating a declaration page, defendant’s witness satisfactorily set forth the “manner or method in which tampering or degradation of the reproduction is prevented” (CPLR 4539 ).”
What I want to know is why counsel could not get the document in as a business record? I am very much curious as to what happened here. Very curious.
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- Business records challenges to police reports
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- Third-party billing records in no-fault claims under Carothers
- New York No-Fault Insurance Law
Legal Update (February 2026): Since this 2016 post was published, New York courts have continued to develop the jurisprudence around CPLR 4518 and 4539 authentication requirements, and there may have been procedural refinements regarding the admission of insurance policy declaration pages and electronic records in no-fault litigation. Practitioners should verify current appellate decisions and any updates to evidence authentication standards that may affect the admissibility of insurance documents and electronic business records.
