Liability insurance: the duty to defend

There is much Canadian, and very little English, authority on the scope of a liability insurer's duty to defend its assured when there is an arguable defence to the assured's claim for an indemnity. In Maag v Chubb Insurance Singapore Ltd [2026] SGHC 143 Kwek Mean Luck J in the Singapore High Court reviewed the authorities and laid down important propositions based on them. These propositions would appear to represent the default position in English law when the policy is otherwise silent on the trigger for the duty to defend.

The facts