to the defense of Poole. 6 . Moreover, not only did Poole's unilateral decision to have the school’s interior remedi-ated violate the terms of the policy, (see ECF No. 1-2 at 19), and impair Nautilus’s ability to protect its interests, which included mounting a litigation strategy to determine fault, see W. Bend Co. v. Chiaphua Indus., Inc., 112 F.Supp.2d 816, 824 (E.D.Wis.2000) (explaining that prohibitions against voluntarily assuming obligations “exist to give the insurer — which is being asked to foot the bill — an opportunity to protect its interests”), but the late tender to Nautilus appears to have- deprived it of the opportunity to control the defense of Poole in the state action. See Wm. C. Vick Constr. Co. v. Pa. Nat’l Mut. Cas. Ins. Co., 52 F.Supp.2d 569, 596 (E.D.N.C.1999) (<HOLDING>). To hold, as Westfield urges, that Nautilus
holding that the insurers failure to pay even what it had considered to be a reasonable sum for defense costs despite having nominally accepted the tender of defense constitutes a breach of the duty to defend holding despite a reservation of rights that when the insurer provides a defense to its insured the insured has no right to interfere with the insurers control of the defense and a stipulated judgment between the insured and the injured claimant without the consent of the insurer is ineffective to impose liability upon the insurer holding that insurer must pay for defense after it declined to provide a defense and coverage was found to exist holding that delayed notice relieves insurer of obligation to pay defense costs if it was actually prejudiced by delay recognizing that an insurers obligation to pay for prenotification legal expenses is concomitant with its right to control the defense and that a contrary result would require the insurer to pay for those defense costs which it had no opportunity to control