Insurance & Reinsurance Litigation
At Foley, we understand that our insurance and reinsurance company clients are in the business of finding negotiated solutions to complex problems. But when negotiations fail to bring about the right result, our Insurance and Reinsurance Litigation group helps those clients resolve those disputes efficiently and effectively.
Our award-winning team has deep, practical experience in both the Property/Casualty and Life, Accident & Health sectors and regularly advises insurers and reinsurers on questions of contract interpretation, coverage, misrepresentation, bad faith, and fraud. We also defend our clients’ policyholders against a wide variety of claims, including labor and employment, securities fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, directors and officers liability, allegations of professional negligence, and product liability.
Additionally, our team regularly partners with our corporate insurance colleagues at Foley to provide assistance with contract drafting and negotiations, regulatory issues, and transactional due diligence.
Clients and peer firms regularly praise Foley’s Insurance & Reinsurance Litigation attorneys and the group has consistently been recognized for its achievements by Chambers USA, The Best Lawyers in America©, and U.S. News.
“The Foley Insurance & Reinsurance Practice Group is an accomplished practice noted for its significant skill in reinsurance matters. Experienced in life, property/casualty and toxic tort litigation.” Chambers USA
Chambers USA
“They have great knowledge of the devilishly complicated subject matter and also have great trial skills.”
Chambers USA
“They are very knowledgeable, definitely experts in the area of reinsurance and provide a strategic advantage for our needs.”
Chambers USA
Our Approach
We work with our clients to define their ultimate goals for each engagement. That may involve obtaining a final ruling from an arbitration panel or a court, narrowing issues through discovery, and/or facilitating a negotiated resolution that preserves an important trading relationship. Our approach is always dictated by the clients’ expectations and needs.
Our partnership with our clients includes working with (and valuing) their internal legal and business teams. This ensures not only that the strategies we are pursuing fit within our clients’ broader expectations and goals but also that the legal team has the information they need to report to their internal clients about the risks and opportunities presented by the matters we are handling.
Our Insurance and Reinsurance Experience
Over the past two decades, Foley’s Insurance & Reinsurance Litigation team has represented some of the largest and most sophisticated insurers and reinsurers in the world.
The team regularly handles cases (both in arbitration and in federal and state courts across the country) involving a variety of issues including: the aggregation and allocation of environmental, chemical and asbestos losses, the reinsurance of energy and construction losses, disputes involving the application of limits under medical stop loss agreements, disputes over whether reinsurance rates under yearly renewable term (YRT) life reinsurance agreements can be increased, the interpretation and enforcement of jumbo limits in life reinsurance agreements, coverage for COVID related business interruption losses, and alleged misrepresentations and/or non-disclosures in the placement of reinsurance treaties.
Representative matters currently being handled by the group include:
- We represent a number of life insurance companies in disputes involving attempts by their reinsurers to increase rates under Yearly Renewable Term (YRT) reinsurance agreements. To date, we have secured rulings in favor of the ceding companies which has saved those companies (collectively) from paying more than US$1bn in additional premiums.
- We represent a third-party administrator in connection with its efforts to collect reinsurance recoveries on behalf of various ceding companies. The cases involve complex coverage issues regarding the reinsurance of asbestos liabilities.
- We represent an insurance company in a case involving wholly untested and unique legal issues arising from that company’s reinsurance agreements with a former corporate affiliate.
- We represent a reinsurance company in its efforts to recover indemnity payments owed by its retrocessionaire for COVID 19 related business interruption losses paid by the reinsurer to its ceding company clients.
- We represent a property/casualty insurer in a multijurisdictional dispute with its policyholder involving coverage for Benzene related losses. The case involves unique issues including the interpretation of past settlement agreements between the parties, the application of annual aggregates, corporate successor liability, and retroactive coverage dates.
