From accident compensation to operating a small business, insurance law is a constant, if subtle, presence in most lives. Nobody knows this better than Professor Erik Knutsen, who has co-authored the fourth edition of a leading book on the subject: Stempel and Knutsen on Insurance Coverage (4th ed.). This two-volume, 3000-page treatise on American insurance law is written for scholars and courts, as well as practitioners from all sides and of all levels of experience.

What makes this work unique is that it takes an even-handed, scholastic approach to the subject of insurance. “The majority of resources in this area are practitioner-written and incorporate a certain perspective of either the insurance company or the policyholder,” Knutsen says. “As academics, my co-author and I take a neutral scholarly approach to the topics and examine them from an intellectual perspective.”

The book covers both the general concepts of insurance law such as risk, moral hazard and policy interpretation, and specific types of coverage such as life insurance, property insurance and commercial general liability policies. Insurance law changes rapidly from year to year, making this new edition essential.

According to Knutsen, “New issues like climate change, terrorism, genetics, health insurance (i.e. the Affordable Health Care Act) and disasters (both natural and human-made) make the law very dynamic. The book talks about where the current law is and also, most importantly, where the law ought to be going in key areas.”

Insurance Coverage isn’t the only new book with Knutsen’s name on the cover: he also co-authored Civil Litigation Process: Cases and Materials (8th ed.), the only civil procedure casebook in Canada. Its new edition is a complete overhaul of the text used by law schools across the country. It includes a new chapter on trials, juries and appeals; a renewed section on experts in the civil litigation process, in particular; and new cases, including the new summary judgment culture prompted by the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision in Hyrniak v Mauldin.

“Like insurance,” Knutsen says, “civil procedure is very dynamic, especially in today’s culture where cost constraints and proportionality impact access to justice concerns on a daily basis.”