NEW YORK--General Electric Co. stands to lose millions of dollars of excess liability coverage for asbestos claims under a New York state court's ruling that each claimant's exposure to asbestos in GE turbine engines is a separate occurrence under the company's insurance program.

State Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman on Monday rejected GE's contention that the thousands of asbestos claims it faces are a single occurrence triggering two decades of policies that attached excess of GE's primary coverage with the now-insolvent Electric Mutual Liability Insurance Co. of Bermuda. Justice Gammerman found that each claimant's exposure was a separate occurrence and that excess policies in force between 1965 and 1985 are triggered only to the extent that each occurrence exceeds EMLICO's primary limit of at least $5 million.

EMLICO's policies during that period did not include an aggregate limit, and none of the asbestos claims against GE has exceeded the EMLICO limit, the ruling noted.

Justice Gammerman's ruling granted summary judgment to Appalachian Insurance Co., a unit of Factory Mutual Insurance Co., but will also apply to numerous other GE excess insurers that either joined the motion or will seek to benefit from it.

A GE spokesman said the company would appeal the ruling.

GE faced relatively few asbestos claims until 1991, when it became a target in widening liability litigation. By April 2002, the company had been named in 413,717 claims, the vast majority related to asbestos insulation used in GE's custom-designed turbine engines, according to Justice Gammerman's opinion.

GE and EMLICO in 1992 reached an asbestos claims handling agreement under which all turbine-related claims were to be treated as a single occurrence under EMLICO's primary policies.

Justice Gammerman ruled that the agreement is not binding on excess insurers, though, and he rejected GE's argument that its design, manufacture, sale, installation and servicing of the engines was a single, continuous occurrence under the excess policies.

EMLICO's relationship with GE became a subject of controversy in 1995, when the insurer redomesticated to Bermuda from Massachusetts and promptly declared itself insolvent by more than $500 million because of underreserving for GE asbestos and pollution claims. During months of litigation that followed, EMLICO reinsurers charged that GE controlled EMLICO and engineered its move to Bermuda in part to speed up reinsurance recoveries under more favorable Bermuda liquidation laws. GE denied the charges and the disputes were later settled.