2026-09-10 · Colorado · Courts

A Colorado HOA director was defended by the association's liability insurer only while a breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim was pending against him. When the claimant voluntarily dismissed that single count, the defence ended — and he remained a defendant on trespass, nuisance and contract claims for years, and ultimately lost. The Tenth Circuit's order and judgment in State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Webb, No. 24-1096, affirmed that outcome.¹

It is marked as an order and judgment rather than a published opinion, so it is persuasive rather than binding. The lesson it carries is not.

The principle boards get wrong

HOA liability coverage for a director is claim-contingent, not status-contingent.

The defence attached because someone pleaded a fiduciary-duty claim against a director in his director capacity. It was never a promise to defend him because he was a director. When that one claim went away, so did the funded defence — even though he was still in the case, still being sued over the same underlying conduct, and eventually lost.

Why the volunteer title did not help

A second coverage route was argued and failed. Titles like “volunteer road inspector” or “road liaison” do not create coverage for conduct the association did not authorise. The state court had found the individuals acted outside any HOA authority, and that finding is what closed off the businessowners policy.

For a Colorado community that hands out informal roles — landscape liaison, pool monitor, architectural volunteer — the point is worth stating plainly to those volunteers: the label does not insure them; the association's actual authorisation does.

1. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Webb, No. 24-1096 (10th Cir.) — order and judgment (unpublished; source of the coverage holding) ↩
2. Same order and judgment, govinfo mirror ↩
3. New Hampshire Insurance Co. v. TSG Ski & Golf, LLC, No. 23-1248 (10th Cir. Feb. 24, 2025) — published opinion on the knowledge-of-falsity exclusion ↩
4. Colorado Supreme Court Case Announcements, January 12, 2026 — the certiorari grant in Twin Shores, No. 25SC286 ↩