Insurance Coverage Claims Negotiation and Litigation

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Experienced Insurance Coverage Litigators

Our firm represents the interests of policyholders seeking coverage from their insurance carriers. We regularly assist clients with preparing and submitting claims to their insurance carriers in the first instance, and responding to insurance coverage denials or reservation of rights letters. When an insurance carrier wrongfully denies coverage, we routinely litigate complex first-party insurance coverage claims in state and federal courts. Of course, not every insurance claim leads to a coverage dispute, and we also work alongside our client’s insurance carriers when we defend our clients from third-party claims being covered by insurance, or when we monitor litigation being handled by insurance-assigned counsel to protect our client’s interests.

We also have significant expertise navigating related issues that come up surrounding insurance coverage, including enforcing contracts to procure insurance, additional insured status and indemnification rights that may trigger insurance coverage.

We successfully negotiate and resolve disputes with cyber insurance carriers regarding coverage for clients under their cyber insurance policies, including coverage for costs and expenses related to data incident response, investigation and remediation.

Our expertise includes issues concerning virtually all types of insurance policies and claims, including:

Business interruption
Commercial general liability
Commercial auto
Commercial property
Construction
Cyber liability
Directors and officers
Employer liability
Environmental
Excess or umbrella
Life insurance
Professional liability

Insurance Coverage Litigation Case Representation

Some of our more noteworthy coverage disputes:

Represented an engineering firm which had been sued for increased costs arising out of the construction of a major power plant. All of the client’s insurance carriers denied both defense and indemnity coverage. After settlement of the underlying suit, we sued the client’s carriers and recovered the full amount paid to settle the underlying lawsuit (in excess of $50 million) as well as the client’s defense costs in that lawsuit.
Represented a major food and beverage processor whose employee had accepted kickbacks from various vendors. The employer suffered in excess of $10 million in damages due to inflated prices that had been paid to those vendors. The client’s carrier contended that the employee’s conduct constituted a single occurrence under its fidelity policy, thereby limiting coverage to $1 million. In addition to filing separate lawsuits against the vendors, we also sued the insurance carrier. Following three weeks of trial, the carrier entered into a settlement which, together with recoveries from the vendors, made restitution to the client.
Represented a diversified energy company in making a claim against three insurance companies under three separate policies for the loss of underground storage gas. The energy company did not have notice of the loss of underground storage gas until ten years after it had occurred. Our attorneys prepared a proof of loss (using a complex computer model) totaling more than $20 million. Each of the three insurance companies entered into extremely favorable settlements with the energy company.
Represented a major food service company that suffered millions of dollars in lost income and additional expenses after one of its products had been recalled. The client’s carrier denied coverage under its property, business income and additional expense policy. We obtained a $21 million verdict against that carrier.
Represented the successor to an electrical equipment manufacturer in a complex insurance dispute with historic insurance carriers concerning indemnification claims for a decades-old product line. Won partial summary judgment dismissing most of the insurance carrier’s defenses and requiring the client’s insurance carrier to defend the insured.
Represented one of the world’s largest food service and hospitality companies whose concessions and restaurants were closed by orders of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local authorities in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. The client’s business interruption carriers denied coverage for the client’s lost profits, which exceeded $10 million, contending (among other things) that there is no such coverage in the absence of physical damage to, or in the vicinity of, the client’s various premises. We filed suit and thereafter entered into a very favorable settlement agreement with the carriers. It should also be noted that insurance carriers have obtained summary judgment in virtually all other lawsuits alleging similar claims in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Represented the Buffalo Destroyers professional football team in claims by eight injured players. The organization was required to pursue its insurer, which had denied “additional insured” coverage that was evidenced by a “Certificate of Insurance.” We successfully obtained a determination of coverage that was thereafter affirmed on appeal.
Represented a public benefit corporation, which had terminated its general contractor on a $20 million project, in a lawsuit where the general contractor’s surety asserted that the termination was unwarranted.
Represented a physician in a lawsuit against his insurance carriers seeking damages for their bad faith failure to settle a medical malpractice claim within their combined policy limits.
Represented premises owners in workplace accident claims where the insurers denied additional insured coverage to the premises owners. We successfully obtained coverage for them.
Represented an engineering firm that had been sued by a plaintiff in a personal injury action. We successfully sued the carriers for the engineering firm, requiring one of the insurers to provide sole primary coverage for its defense costs up to $100,000, and then the two carriers were to share equally in the defense costs in excess of $100,000. This decision was affirmed on appeal. Thereafter, we successfully obtained dismissal of the underlying claim as to our client.
Defended a wrongful death workplace accident where a third-party’s employee repairman was attempting to remove a propeller from a tugboat using a five-ton chain fall and a two-ton chain fall. The chain fall was subjected to severe side loading which caused the load chain to run across the edge of the rudder, breaking the chain, and causing the propeller to fall, fatally striking the employee repairman. The claim against the firm’s client was favorably resolved by the insurance carrier for the third-party repair company.