QBE Insurance Unit Sues Louisiana Company Over Crude Oil Release

A QBE Insurance Group Ltd. unit is suing a Louisiana oil field services company, seeking a ruling that the insurer’s policy doesn’t cover a claim arising from a crude oil release last year.

Coverage is barred because crude oil is a “pollutant” under an exclusion in a commercial general liability policy issued to Alamo Wireline Inc., QBE UK Ltd. said in a complaint Wednesday in the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

The defendant, doing business as Alamo Oilfield Services, also didn’t qualify for an exception to the pollution exclusion because it failed to report the release ...