When Margaret Chen telephoned her insurance broker in early September to discuss coverage for her expanding greenhouse operation in the Holland Marsh, she reached David Okonkwo, who had handled Fine's Flowers Limited's insurance needs for nearly a decade. Margaret explained that the business had recently acquired two additional growing facilities and a refrigerated delivery truck, and she wanted everything properly covered before the fall harvest season began. David assured her he would take care of it immediately. What Margaret did not fully appreciate, and what David perhaps took for granted after years of seamless renewals, was that David's relationship with the insurer was not the straightforward broker-client-insurer triangle she might have imagined. David's brokerage held binding authority from the insurer, meaning he could issue coverage documents, set certain terms, and commit the insurer to risk without waiting for underwriting approval on each transaction. This authority, granted to facilitate efficient service for commercial clients, fundamentally altered the legal relationships among the three parties. When the refrigerated truck was destroyed in an accident six weeks later and the insurer discovered that David had bound coverage without noting the vehicle's specialized refrigeration equipment — equipment that would have attracted a higher premium and specific policy terms — the question of whose agent David actually was at the moment of binding became central to determining who would bear the loss.