Policy Challenges, Inter-Insurer Interactions, and Effective Claim Handling in the Market Environment

Effective handling of market claims can present numerous challenges, arising from differences in policy wording between and among layers of coverage, use of different policy forms (e.g., broker v. proprietary forms), differing views on coverage, and differences over establishing the quantum of loss and setting appropriate reserves. The panel discussed these issues and others arising in the context of market claims, with an emphasis on strategies to achieve fair and efficient claim resolution.

Business Interruption and First-Party Coverage After Hurricanes, Floods: Issues for Insurers and Insureds

The program examined flood exclusions, concurrent causation, business interruption losses, and off-premises coverage. The discussion included the unique commercial property insurance coverage issues that insurers and policyholders face when responding to claimed losses arising from natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods. The panel also addressed the deductibles and exclusions that most often create coverage disputes and why that occurs; the differences between direct and contingent business interruption coverage; and controversies over business interruption coverage at the insured site and from off-premises damage. The webinar offered best strategies for submitting and receiving claims based on lessons learned over the past decade.

Crumbling Concrete: Anatomy of a Progressive Loss

Insurance + Reinsurance Group member, Ray DeMeo, presented the program "Crumbling Concrete: Anatomy of a Progressive Loss" on June 3, during the Loss Executives Association's two-day June Webinar Series, held June 2-3, 2021. The session analyzed the nationwide implications of  the recent property insurance crisis that occurred in two New England states in which building foundations experienced significant progressive cracking, which resulted in lawsuits and eventually court decisions on the meaning of “collapse” in property insurance policies, as well as trigger-of-coverage issues in progressive losses.

Business Interruption Insurance Coverage and the COVID-19 Crisis: An Examination

Insurance + Reinsurance Group chair, Greg Varga, moderated the interactive webinar discussion “Business Interruption Insurance Coverage and the COVID-19 Crisis: An Examination” on March 26, 2020. I+R Group members Wystan Ackerman, Ray DeMeo and Kip Dwyer also participated in this first in a series of webinars designed to explore critical coverage and loss measurement issues that are expected to emerge from COVID-19-related business interruption claims.

As the widespread economic impacts of the novel coronavirus come into focus, businesses in the United States and around the world are looking to business interruption insurance for relief from losses associated with social distancing, supply chain disruption, and decreased demand for goods and services. Simultaneously, politicians and government agencies are pressuring the insurance industry to provide relief, in spite of exclusions and other policy provisions that generally bar coverage. The program examined whether the presence of COVID-19 constitutes “direct physical loss;” the effect of COVID-19 on the “period of restoration” of existing property claims; the applicability of Civil Authority and Contingent Business Income coverage to the claims arising from the novel coronavirus; and how labor shortages and supply chain disruptions may affect the period of restoration of existing claims caused by perils unrelated to the virus. This series is designed for insurance executives, experienced claim professionals and in-house counsel. 

The ALI's Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance, The World Turned Upside Down?

Ray DeMeo discussed "The ALI's Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance, The World Turned Upside Down?" as a panelist at the University of Connecticut School of Law on April 29, 2019. 

The World Turned Upside Down

Insurance + Reinsurance Group lawyer Ray DeMeo was a panelist at the American Law Institute’s Restatement of Law Liability Insurance conference, The World Turned Upside Down, at the UConn Law School in Hartford, Connecticut on April 5, 2019. Ray spoke as part of a panel  entitled “Plain Meaning and Ambiguity in Insurance Contracts.” In his role as an education director on the Connecticut Bar Association’s Insurance Law Section board, Insurance + Reinsurance Group lawyer J. Tyler Butts helped design the CLE-eligible event and assisted in organizing the panel on which Ray spoke.

Policy Inconsistencies, Inter-Insurer Conflicts, and Effective Claim Handling in the Market Situation

The session identified areas of conflict that can arise between primary and excess property insurers and between multiple insurers providing quota share coverage in the same layer of insurance. Mr. DeMeo covered strategies to proceed with orderly claims adjustment without allowing conflicts to interfere with providing timely payments of covered losses to the insured.