f. "Supporting Obligation." This new term covers the most common types of credit enhancements-suretyship obligations (including guarantees) and letter-of-credit rights that support one of the types of collateral specified in the definition. As explained in Comment 2.a., suretyship law determines whether an obligation is "secondary" for purposes of this definition. Section 9-109 generally excludes from this Article transfers of interests in insurance policies. However, the regulation of a secondary obligation as an insurance product does not necessarily mean that it is a "policy of insurance" for purposes of the exclusion in Section 9-109 [Maine cite section 9-1109]. Thus, this Article may cover a secondary obligation (as a supporting obligations), even if the obligation is issued by a regulated insurance company and the obligation is subject to regulation as an "insurance" product.

This Article contains rules explicitly governing attachment, perfection, and priority of security interests in supporting obligations. See Sections 9-203, 9-308, 9-310, and 9-322 [Maine cite sections 9-1203, 9-1308, 9-1310 and 9-1322]. These provisions reflect the principle that a supporting obligation is an incident of the collateral it supports.

Collections of or other distributions under a supporting obligations are "proceeds" of the supported collateral as well as "proceeds" of the supporting obligation itself. See Section 9- 102 [Maine cite section 9-1102] (defining "proceeds") and Comment 13.b. As such, the collections and distributions are subject to the priority rules applicable to proceeds generally. See Section 9-322 [Maine cite section 9-1322]. However, under the special rule governing security interests in a letter-of-credit right, a secured party's failure to obtain control (Section 9-107) [Maine cite section 9-1107] of a letter-of-credit right supporting collateral may leave its security interest exposed to a priming interest of a party who does take control. See Section 9-329 [Maine cite section 9-1329] (security interest in a letter-of- credit right perfected by control has priority over a conflicting security interest).

g. "Commercial Tort Claim." This term is new. A tort claim may serve as original collateral under this Article only if it is a "commercial tort claim." See Section 9- 109(d) [Maine cite section 9-1109, subsection (4)]. Although security interests in commercial tort claims are within its scope, this Article does not override other applicable law restricting the assignability of a tort