A US federal judge has held that the insurer of a New Jersey airport owed no coverage in an underlying lawsuit stemming from injuries suffered during a skydiving accident because of the policy exclusion for injuries arising out of any parachuting activities. The parachute jumping exclusions stipulated that coverage did not include bodily injury or property damage resulting from any parachuting activity.

The claimants alleged that a tandem skydive experience went wrong and the skydivers landed outside the established drop zone and collided with a parked car suffering significant bodily injury.

The court refused to restrict the exclusion to a situation where the insured themselves were directly involved in the parachuting activities as that would require it to rewrite the exclusion.

(The case is U.S. Specialty Insurance Co. v Sussex Airport Inc. et al.)