Our Areas of Practice
Coverage | Reinsurance | Professional Liability | Directors and Officers Liability | General Liability
Insurance and Reinsurance Insolvency | Insurance Corporate, Transactional & Regulatory
COVERAGE
Our lawyers have a broad range of experience in insurance coverage and bad faith issues. We have handled matters involving professional liability, general liability, directors and officers, environmental, surety, property (including business interruption), employers practices liability and miscellaneous errors and omissions coverages. We have initiated declaratory judgments on behalf of underwriters and have defended several major environmental liability coverage disputes, involving numerous insurers. In addition, we have handled and tried numerous duty to defend and excess cases and have handled excess cases on behalf of both primary and excess insurers. We are well experienced with the core issues involved in excess coverage, including issues arising from insolvency.
We have litigated issues at the trial and appellate level involving both claims made and occurrence policies, including several cases establishing the scope of coverage provided under each type of policy as well as issues involving triggers, etc.
C&B lawyers have detailed knowledge of U.S., Bermuda and London Market policy wordings and of litigated coverage issues involving both manuscript and standard form policies.
Some of our reported cases have been the seminal cases in various jurisdictions concerning trigger of coverage, appraisal clauses and duty to defend.
Many of our cases have involved questions of underwriting intent and have been litigated on the basis of placing slips or binders where no wording was issued prior to the loss. In such circumstances, we have conducted extensive investigations and have developed evidence far beyond what is available in the retained placing files to achieve successful results.
REINSURANCE
C&B represents clients in a variety of reinsurance arbitration and litigation matters involving a wide scope of issues. These matters range from “follow the settlements” issues to technical accounting and cession issues to rescission and questions of original underwriting intent. The Firm has frequently represented reinsurers on disputes concerning the application of the reinsurance contract to the subject ceded losses, including disputes concerning allocation and aggregation. We represent cedants, reinsurers and retrocessionaires, as well as intermediaries. We also have extensive experience in international pool disputes, including issues involving the extent of underwriting authority, retrocessional recoveries, fronting issues, and insolvency of pool agents and participants.
We routinely supervise reinsurance litigation and arbitration in the United Kingdom on behalf of U.S. clients. Though we do not directly practice in the U.K., we have extensive and longstanding relationships with U.K. law firms and chambers and have a good familiarity with U.K. substantive reinsurance and procedural law.
The Firm maintains files on qualified arbitrators and experts. The Firm directs and participates in reinsurance claims and underwriting audits. We also are regularly consulted regarding draft treaty wording, underwriting agreements, and other contractual documents.
PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY
C&B routinely handles cases involving a wide range of professionals, including lawyers, architects and engineers, and insurance brokers.
Our lawyers are experienced in defending lawyers in an array of issues from statute of limitations issues to complex bankruptcy and securities issues. While generally our experience in this particular area has been concentrated in the mid-Atlantic/Northeast region, we have also supervised cases and entire programs nationally.
We have defended both domestic and international insurance brokers in matters ranging from personal lines to complex London Market reinsurance placements. Several of our cases have involved allegations of fraud and misrepresentation on the part of the broker, and we have successfully defended each of these. We have a detailed knowledge of the business of insurance and reinsurance, which enhances our representation, as we have extensive experience in technical issues, such as net accounting, multi-layer placements, and broker collections.
C&B lawyers regularly, and successfully, have defended the interests of design and construction professionals, including architects and engineers. Whether in AAA arbitration, jury trials or court trials, we have handled every aspect of design and implementation claims from investigation through final verdict or award.
DIRECTORS AND OFFICERS LIABILITY
The Firm’s lawyers have many years experience handling coverage for Directors and Officers liability claims, including claims involving major securities and corporate litigation of Fortune 500 companies, fiduciary liability of D&O’s under ERISA and otherwise, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act exposure, non-profit D&O liability, nuclear plant D&O exposure, environmental D&O exposure, bankruptcy D&O issues, etc.
In addition, our lawyers have provided extensive counseling to foreign and domestic D&O insurers concerning D&O wordings and endorsements, policy analysis, excess issues, and underwriting issues.
GENERAL LIABILITY
The Firm’s lawyers have been involved in a broad range of general liability matters ranging from premises and automobile to products, advertising injury, and environmental. The Firm has also defended cases in the related area of business interruption.
We have represented foreign insurers that provide coverage for U.S. risks, and their insureds, and have particular expertise in issues relating to international jurisdiction and discovery.
We have confronted a range of damage issues from bodily injury to hedonic loss and economic injury, and have worked with a range of experts from medical to accident reconstruction and product design.
The Firm’s lawyers have experience with products liability, including defense of insureds, interpretation of coverage and disputes over the application of reinsurance contracts to products cessions.
Because of the Firm’s emphasis on sophisticated and complex litigation matters, its lawyers have always welcomed, for their complexity and challenges, the handling of general liability claims. Early coordination with, or even retention of, appropriate experts, and hands on field investigation are two important steps in the process by which the Firm handles general liability matters. Clients have found that our representations are both cost effective and aggressive due to the experience of the attorneys in the Firm, and also due to the systems and support personnel that the Firm employs in complex cases.
Much of our work in this area involves multiple defendants, often with conflicting interests. We pay special attention in this type of situation to make an early assessment of when settlement opportunities will be optimal given the greater complexity of proof.
We consider early mediation to be an increasingly useful tool in resolving many general liability cases at an early stage.
If a matter warrants, we use sophisticated methods of presentation, such as accident reconstruction and computer generated demonstrative evidence. We believe that foreshadowing to a plaintiff that we are prepared to make a sophisticated trial presentation often moves a matter to earlier resolution.
INSURANCE AND REINSURANCE INSOLVENCY
We have broad experience in insurance/reinsurance insolvencies. C&B has represented receivers, rehabilitators, reinsurers, and creditors of impaired and insolvent insurance companies as well as guaranty associations and creditors’ committees in insolvency proceedings in several U.S. jurisdictions. In addition, we have been involved in insolvency proceedings, schemes and transfers in foreign jurisdictions through local counsel, and in developing plans of liquidation. We have also challenged the recognition of foreign proceedings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, including several Part VII proceedings under U.K. law. Part of our work in this area has involved bringing and opposing injunctive actions.
Among the issues that we have addressed are: state and federal pre-emption, controlling jurisdiction and related issues in transnational insolvencies and statutory preferences. We also have good working relationships with firms in foreign jurisdictions which practice in this area.
INSURANCE CORPORATE, TRANSACTIONAL & REGULATORY
We have been involved in forming domestic and offshore reinsurers and have advised on the formation of several types of captives. We have also represented buyers and sellers on the sale and purchase of insurers and reinsurers. We have advised the boards of insurers on different types of transactions, and one of our lawyers has been a board member of insurance and reinsurance companies.
We also advise on regulatory matters and strategy. We have obtained licenses for admitted companies and approvals for surplus lines insurers in several U.S. jurisdictions. One of our partners is a former General Counsel to the Maryland Insurance Administration, and two C&B lawyers served as officers of insurance and reinsurance companies, including as CEO of a professional liability insurer and Associate General Counsel of a large reinsurer. We have counseled insurers, reinsurers, and intermediaries on a range of compliance issues and represented their interests in numerous administrative, enforcement, and disciplinary proceedings. We have also drafted legislation that was enacted in the State of Maryland as part of its insurance law.