Auto-Owners Insurance Company v. Bolt Factory Lofts Owners Association Inc., a Colorado Nonprofit Corporation

Summary

The court held that the pretrial agreement assigning the insured’s bad-faith claims and protecting the insured from direct execution was permissible, even though the parties proceeded through an uncontested trial rather than a stipulated judgment. The insurer was not entitled to intervene as of right because it could challenge coverage, liability, reasonableness, fraud, and collusion in subsequent declaratory-judgment or bad-faith proceedings, so its interests were not impaired. The court therefore affirmed the court of appeals, while clarifying that trial courts may require the parties to use a stipulated judgment instead.