GVK’s Reinsurance Practice
One of our new practice areas with the addition of Bruce M. Friedman and his team from Rubin Fiorella Friedman & Mercante LLP, is a full-service reinsurance practice. Bruce is among the most experienced reinsurance practitioners in the country. Bruce’s bio may be found at the GVK website.
While reinsurance is far removed from the daily thought processes and operations of claim adjustors and defense counsel, the actions of those persons can have implications on the reinsurance collection process. The manner in which claim files are documented and maintained, settlements packaged and reported to reinsurers, and substantive reinsurance reporting, can all affect not only reinsurance recoveries but the speed with which reinsurance claims are paid.
Every insurance company purchases substantial reinsurance, both treaty and facultative, to protect its books of business and to enable the company to grow its premium base. While insurers and their reinsurers are in an active trading relationship, few disputes are likely to develop. However, there are always going to be principled disagreements relating to coverage. Opioid, other public nuisance, COVID, sexual misconduct and cyber claims, occurrence-related issues, and reinsurance contract interpretation, are driving the majority of current reinsurance disputes, while asbestos and environmental claims continue to drive disputes on legacy business.
Today, with insurers and reinsurers increasingly selling off their discontinued lines of business, companies now find themselves having to collect reinsurance from or pay reinsurance to companies with whom they did not enter into the reinsurance contracts. It is in this so-called “run-off” space that most of today’s reinsurance disputes are spawned.
Bruce and his team can be of assistance to GVK clients in many areas, including:
- Reinsurance collections in arbitration or litigation
- Abbreviated ADR processes where the amounts at issue do not justify the cost of traditional arbitration or litigation processes
- Enforcing security requirements in reinsurance contracts with non-admitted reinsurers
- Counseling claim staffs on file management
- Allocation of settlements where the underlying claim implicates multiple policy periods
- Managing bad faith, XPL and ECO exposures
- Analyzing contracts to verify insurance and reinsurance coverage
- Evaluating assumed reinsurance claims
Our clients may already be familiar with Bruce and his reinsurance practice capabilities. If not, we would appreciate the opportunity to introduce Bruce and his team to your ceded and/or assumed reinsurance staff.
