Cody Pools Lawsuit: Insurance Fights and Homeowner Suits

Cody Pools is fighting two of its own insurance carriers in federal court in Texas over whether their policies cover “concrete cancer” damage to hundreds of pools the company built across Central Texas, and individual homeowners have brought their own breach-of-warranty claims against the company. As of mid-2025, a federal judge dismissed one of Cody Pools’ counterclaims against insurer CNA, and a parallel coverage case brought by Amerisure has been stayed. None of the core disputes has been resolved. If you’re searching for the Cody Pools lawsuit, there is no single case: there is a cluster of them, and the outcome for homeowners depends heavily on how the insurance fights end.

“Concrete cancer” is the common name for alkali-silica reaction, or ASR. Alkali hydroxides in cement react with reactive silica in certain aggregates, and in the presence of moisture the reaction produces an expanding gel that cracks and swells concrete from the inside. Pool shells and decks built with the wrong mix can fail within a few years. More than 250 Central Texas pools have been affected since 2017, with the damage typically surfacing in a five-to-twelve-year window after construction.¹ Remediation almost always means demolishing and rebuilding the pool, at an estimated cost of $150,000 to $500,000.²

The CNA Coverage Fight

In November 2024, Continental Insurance Company and National Fire Insurance Company of Hartford, both part of the CNA group, filed a declaratory judgment action against Cody Pools in the Western District of Texas. The case is The Continental Insurance Company et al. v. Cody Pools, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-01410. CNA is asking the court to rule that it has no duty to defend or indemnify Cody Pools for ASR claims.³⁴

CNA’s argument rests on what it calls a “silica exclusion” in the commercial general liability policies it sold to Cody Pools. Because ASR damage arises from silica in the concrete, CNA says, the policies bar the claims outright. Cody Pools counterclaimed, calling the position bad faith and arguing that an exclusion that strips coverage for the fundamental material in pool construction is “illogical and deeply unfair.” A company attorney described the suit as CNA trying to “abandon its longtime client.”⁴

In August 2025, a federal judge adopted a magistrate’s recommendation and dismissed Cody Pools’ promissory estoppel counterclaim, overruling the company’s objection that the magistrate had used the wrong legal standard. That narrows the company’s pushback inside the CNA case, but the underlying coverage question is still pending.⁵

The Amerisure Coverage Fight

Amerisure Insurance Company filed a separate declaratory judgment action against Cody Pools in July 2024, also in the Western District of Texas, No. 1:24-cv-00786, assigned to Judge David A. Ezra. In May 2025, Judge Ezra denied Cody Pools’ motion to dismiss Amerisure’s complaint but granted a stay, pausing the case indefinitely.⁶

Together, the two insurer suits put Cody Pools in a bind. If the courts side with CNA and Amerisure, the company would face ASR claims from homeowners without the backing of its liability policies.

Homeowner Suits Against Cody Pools

Homeowners have also sued Cody Pools directly. The most publicly reported case involves Chris Fulbright, who paid Cody Pools more than $100,000 for a pool built in 2020. After the pool developed severe ASR damage, Fulbright sued the company in May 2023 for breach of warranty. He said Cody Pools had told him it was filing an insurance claim on his behalf, but the process stalled before any resolution.⁴

One notable boundary: although Cody Pools is one of Central Texas’s most prominent builders, it does not appear on the defendant list for the state’s consolidated ASR multidistrict litigation, In Re Easy Mix Construction Defect Litigation (Texas Supreme Court MDL No. 23-0212), which brings together more than 100 cases against other builders and concrete suppliers. A Travis County docket listing the pool construction defendants in the consolidated proceedings does not include Cody Pools.⁷⁸ The company’s publicly reported legal exposure runs through individual homeowner suits and the two insurer actions, not the MDL.

No class action against Cody Pools has been certified, and no global settlement has been announced. Across the broader ASR litigation involving multiple builders, a broker who handled 126 insurance claims reported that roughly 15 percent had settled, with payouts between $50,000 and $450,000. Plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Lovins, who represents about 25 homeowners in the wider dispute, has said making clients financially whole is “extremely unlikely.”¹

What Cody Pools Says It Has Done

CEO Mike Church says the company has set up a dedicated Response Team to work with affected customers, compiled a list of potentially impacted homeowners and notified them, and advocated for them during the insurance claims process.²⁴

On the construction side, the company identified three shotcrete providers and several quarries as the sources of the reactive materials, ended its relationships with all of them, and stopped using shotcrete in new residential pool construction.²

If You Own a Cody Pools Pool

Three facts matter most if your pool is or might be affected.

First, the damage window. ASR typically appears five to twelve years after construction, and the first visible signs are calcium deposits blooming across the surface, widening cracks, and unexplained water loss.¹ A pool built with reactive aggregate during the affected period can look fine for years before failing.

Second, the warranty. Cody Pools’ standard 30-year warranty is not transferable when a property is sold. A second owner may have no warranty coverage even on a pool the company originally built.²

Third, the money. A full ASR rebuild runs $150,000 to $500,000, and whether Cody Pools can draw on insurance to help pay that depends on the outcome of the CNA and Amerisure cases.² Homeowners whose claims are already in process with Cody Pools’ insurers have, in some cases, waited through long stalls, as the Fulbright suit illustrates. The legal theories that have worked in similar homeowner suits against other builders include breach of implied warranty under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (which requires contractors to perform in a “good and workmanlike” manner), negligence, and breach of express warranty.¹

If you suspect ASR, document the symptoms, hold on to construction records including any concrete mix tickets, and get a plaintiff-side construction defect attorney involved before symptoms worsen or limitations issues arise. The insurance picture around Cody Pools is unsettled, and the window to act is finite.

1
Texas Monthly. Concrete Cancer Pool Crack Epidemic Central Texas
2
KVUE. Concrete Cancer: What Texas Homebuyers and Realtors Should Know
3
GovInfo. The Continental Insurance Company et al v. Cody Pools, Inc.
4
Pool Magazine. Popular Texas Pool Builder at Center of Federal Lawsuit Over Concrete Cancer Coverage
5
Mealey’s Litigation Report. Insured’s Counterclaim in Dispute Over Defective Pool Shells Dismissed
6
PACER Monitor. Amerisure Insurance Company v. Cody Pools, Inc.
7
Travis County District Courts. Travis County Courts Case Docket
8
SCOTXBlog. In Re Easy Mix Construction Defect Litigation, No. 23-0212