Insurance Claims Litigation & Counseling
Serving the insurance industry for over 100 years.
WHY LOCKE LORD
For over 100 years, the insurance industry has turned to Locke Lord for help with the most complex and challenging regulatory and litigation issues. From thorny regulatory issues to bet-the-company litigation and arbitration, Locke Lord has answered the insurers' call. We represent national and multi-national insurers in coverage and bad faith cases, from single plaintiff cases to mass actions and class actions. We provide the full spectrum of services, from skilled analysis and opinions of policies to claims defense in litigation. We represent insurers in high-stakes and contentious litigation, often involving very significant alleged exposure, sophisticated legal issues, considerable factual and expert discovery, multi-party dynamics, multiple lines of current and historical coverages and complex jurisdictional battles.
Policy Drafting and Defense
Our lawyers are experienced with policies of all types, including:
- Primary and excess insurance
- First party and third party policies
- Manuscript and form language
Our services include:
- Assist in developing policy wordings and new products
- Conduct audits for self-insureds and insurers, including in connection with potential or completed acquisitions of business units with historical policies
- Assist with “Triage” of potential claims, following major events or disasters or after corporate acquisitions
- Counsel on claims management and risk reduction
We address all types of direct insurance matters that involve a wide variety of insureds, innumerable types of underlying claims, significant technical and financial issues, and sophisticated legal analyses and strategies. Some of the claims types and industries include:
Casualty — including both general liability and more targeted liability policies, such as D&O, E&O, cyber risk, professional liability, products liability and malpractice and for a wide variety of entities and industries (whether individually insured or through various program placements), including:
- Financial institutions
- Fortune 500 companies
- Manufacturing concerns
- Technology companies
- Pharmaceutical and medical device entities
- Service providers
- Construction companies
- Global accounting firms
- Not-for-profit and religious institutions
- Public officials and governmental entities
- School boards
- Legal professionals
- Medical providers, accountants, architects and engineers
- Insurance brokers and agents
- Real estate brokers, and property owners and managers
Property — including property losses, business interruption and recalls for an array of types of insureds, such as construction, energy, marine, mining and more
Fiduciary Litigation — including suits brought against trustees of pension plans, charitable trusts and business trusts as well as representing investment advisers in the defense of breach of fiduciary duty claims under both U.S. state law and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940
Bad Faith — including statutory claims and claims of other alleged insurer misconduct; also as to various alleged extra-contractual remedies sought by insureds
Coverage Opinions and Policy Drafting — including:
- First party and third party claims
- Complex exposure claims
- Standard and complex wordings and construction
- Developing new products
- Addressing coverage issues presented by professional liability
- D&O
- Financial institutions
- Cyber
- Environmental
- Products liability
- Employment liability
- General liability
- Property risks
Bermuda Form — including dealing with the various strategic issues presented by Bermuda Form proceedings and both the procedural and substantive law aspects of these disputes
Helping Our Clients Engage in the Business of Insurance
We support the business goals of our insurance clients by addressing licensing and formation matters, answering day-to-day operating questions, such as insurance holding company filings, investment and capital requirements and corporate governance. Our lawyers help clients confront problems when they run into matters, such as capital infusion, insolvency and guaranty fund issues.
Insurance regulation can change dramatically from state to state, and we are skilled at addressing and meeting differing demands in multiple jurisdictions. We target a particular state or structure businesses and products for multi-state transactions. We also implement national insurance programs. Our regulatory and transactional insurance team includes former state insurance commissioners and those who have served in senior executive and legal positions in insurance companies and trade associations. We have strong relationships with the insurance departments throughout the United States and with the various insurance liquidators.
Other regulatory and transactional services include:
- Mergers and acquisitions/purchase of blocks of business
- E-commerce and alternative risk financing transactions
- Investments, including guaranteed investment contracts, collateralized debt obligations, collateralized mortgage obligations, equity and debt investment funds, financial asset securitization investment trusts and others
- Real estate fund investments and direct real estate investments, including the restructuring and workout of troubled real estate investments
Visit our Insurance & Reinsurance Blog (InsureReinsure.com) for the latest news and developments.
Our lawyers are members and fellows or hold leadership positions in legal and trade organizations, including:
- ABA Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section
- Association of Business Trial Lawyers
- Aviation Insurance Association
- Defense Research Institute
- International Association of Defense Counsel
- International Aviation Women’s Association
- Litigation Counsel of America
- Maritime Law Association
- National Institute for Trial Advocacy
- Professional Liability Underwriting Society
- Texas Association of Defense Counsel