Preemption Exemption

Greenwich Insurance Company made a number of errors in its internal accounting about crop insurance premiums.  When those mistakes ultimately led to a substantial assessment against it by a state authority, Greenwich argued that the state standards were preempted by regulations associated with the Federal Crop Insurance Act.  The Fifth Circuit agreed with the district court that they were not, as the true source of Greenwich’s problems was not the state rules but its own “acts of unjustifiable incompetence”:  “The FCIC did not intend to hamstring . . . the operations of state programs . . . simply to protect inattentive insurers from their own mistakes.”  Greenwich Ins. Co. v. Mississippi Windstorm Underwrting Ass’n, No. 15-60405 (Dec. 15, 2015).