The cancellation notice cited risk and attached a link to one of the impeachment efforts against him. A Connecticut carrier has now written the same reasoning into a filed rate.
HARTFORD, CONN.—Citing a loss trend it called documented and sustained, Naugatuck Mutual Casualty confirmed Wednesday that it has filed a judicial risk rating class under which sitting federal judges are underwritten by docket, with rulings against the executive branch priced as a named peril.
The company said the class follows the industry’s experience rather than leading it. U.S. District Judge John McConnell, the chief federal judge in Rhode Island, told The Washington Post that an insurer canceled his homeowner’s policy after he ruled against the administration’s freeze on federal funding. The carrier indicated the insured party was too risky and attached a link to one of the two efforts to impeach him.
“Somebody at that carrier did the work by hand and priced one file,” said Lorraine Buckmiller, 58, vice president of personal lines at Naugatuck Mutual. “We looked at the same file and asked why it was one. The exposure does not stop at Rhode Island.”
What the Judicial Risk Rating Class Covers
Under the filing, a federal judge applying for a homeowner’s policy answers eleven questions. Six concern the property. Five concern the docket. A judge who has issued a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, or final judgment against a federal agency within the preceding 36 months moves into the rated class and pays a surcharge of 41 percent on the dwelling portion of the premium.
The filing classifies the exposure under attractive nuisance, the same heading that covers swimming pools, trampolines, and unfenced ponds. Buckmiller said the placement took about a day to settle.
“An attractive nuisance is a condition on the premises that draws in a party who then gets hurt,” she said. “The condition here is the occupant. We are not making a judgment about the ruling. We are noting that the ruling is on the property, in the sense that the person who issued it sleeps there.”
The Numbers Behind the Judicial Risk Rating
Federal data carries the filing, which runs to 94 pages. The U.S. Marshals Service recorded 564 threats against 396 federal judges in fiscal 2025, up from 509 threats against 379 judges the year before. Over the same period, the judiciary told Congress that security incidents of significant concern rose 57 percent and are on track to rise again.
In April the Marshals Service asked Congress for $34 million and 78 additional positions for its judicial security division, saying it expects the threat environment to intensify. Naugatuck Mutual quoted that line on page 12 and cited it as the trend basis.
“The government published a forecast,” said a reinsurance underwriter who was not authorized to discuss treaty terms. “That changes things. An actuary who ignores a federal forecast is the one with the problem. We are the last people in this story who can pretend not to have read it.”
Where the Carrier Says the Losses Come From
Page 40 lists what the filing calls trigger events. Last month the general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, James Percival, posted a list of federal judges under the heading his agency ordinarily applies to alleged criminals it is seeking to deport. Percival has written that fact based critique of judges is “fair game in a free society.”
An April news release sits in the same section. The department described U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose, a colleague of McConnell’s, as an activist Biden judge who had released an immigrant wanted for murder. An 80-page special counsel report later found the warrant had been withheld from her at the direction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Asked about the president’s attacks on judges, a White House spokeswoman called such opinions a form of free expression. Abigail Jackson added that the administration “cares deeply for the safety” of the judicial branch.
A separate post carried a photograph of McConnell’s daughter, a former political appointee at the Education Department. Elon Musk recirculated it to millions of followers. He was heading the Department of Government Efficiency at the time and still owned the platform. Buckmiller called reach figures the cleanest input the file has, because the platforms publish them.
A Credit for Judges Who Qualify
The surcharge is waivable. A judge who answers no to all five docket questions returns to the standard rate, and the filing describes the discount as a loss control credit, in the same paragraph that grants credits for deadbolts and monitored alarms. Buckmiller said the company expects most of the bench to qualify.
“Every credit we write rewards a choice the insured controls,” she said. “That is the whole idea of a credit. Nobody calls a deadbolt coercion.”
A spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts declined to comment. McConnell has said he turned down the office’s offer of help with the second impeachment attempt because he wanted to get back to doing his job. Newswax reported this week on a bank that closed a customer’s accounts after a risk review and then spent five years in court explaining why.
The judicial risk rating takes effect on renewal. It does not apply to policies already canceled.
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