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Attorney Listing
Insurance Coverage and Risk Management
Services for the Insurance and Reinsurance Industry
Lawyers in Duane Morris' Insurance Coverage and Risk Management Practice Group have been engaged in the representation of insurance and risk management interests for many years. We have served as counsel to numerous property and casualty insurance companies, professional liability underwriters, life insurance companies, reinsurance companies, HMOs and PPOs, rating bureaus, captive insurers offshore, alternative market entities and guaranty associations, and underwriters of public offerings of insurance securities. Our attorneys have been involved in some of the largest and most complex insurance coverage litigation in the country. In addition, we have represented foreign insurers in the defense of multidistrict litigation brought by a number of state attorneys general and private parties, who alleged global conspiracies with respect to the pricing and availability of liability insurance.
The recent addition of proprietary algorithm-based risk assessment products and services has enhanced our ability to assist our clients in cost-effective and timely risk assessment for underwriting and risk management purposes. We currently have two risk assessment tools to assist our clients: HICOM® , a tool that enables organizations who maintain or transmit personal health information to fully and accurately assess their mandatory compliance with network security provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and PRISMATIC®, a tool to evaluate the legal, managerial and technological risks of e-commerce systems.
The firm also frequently represents policyholders in litigation and non-litigation in various coverage and risk assessment matters as well as in coverage review and negotiation engagements.
Our background in insurance matters enhances our ability to effectively address client concerns. We have an in-depth understanding of actuarial, underwriting and policy coverage issues affecting the business and legal issues important to our clients. We have handled matters affecting financial examinations, market conduct concerns, and other regulatory issues, as well as general corporate matters.
Insurance Coverage
Duane Morris has an extensive insurance coverage practice in which the firm represents:
- national and international insurance carriers as coverage and monitoring counsel in major coverage litigation involving comprehensive general liability, errors and omissions and various forms of business interruption policies;
- professional liability insurers in a broad range of areas including corporate and financial institution directors and officers, ERISA fiduciaries, investment bankers, securities broker-dealers, lawyers, accountants, insurance agents and brokers and other professionals;
- reinsurers, cedents and retrocessionaires in the drafting, review, interpretation and dispute resolution of treaty and facultative reinsurance contracts; and
- marine, aviation and transportation insurers across a broad spectrum of coverage matters.
Risk Management
The focus of the firm's risk management practice, in which we often work with technology providers, is in the cost-effective and timely assessment of:
- the emerging legal and technological risks arising from having a business presence on the Internet;
- Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 compliance;
- insurable risks, analyzed in connection with the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (TRIA), underlying a company's need for insurance against commercial losses caused by acts of terrorism; and
- compliance with the regulations issued under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
- the more insurance and reinsurance underwriters know about the risks which they are being asked to insure, the better they are able to provide adequate and fairly priced products; and
- the better businesses understand their potential risks and regulatory compliance status, the more likely they will be to make engaged, cost-effective and fully informed risk management and coverage selection decisions.
The firm's cutting-edge proprietary technological products and processes permit a rapid, cost-effective assessment in several areas of emerging risks and statutory compliance. The risk and compliance assessments are based on solid and detailed legal analysis, aided by available technology, to deliver real assessments in real time. The turnaround time of the assessments is quick, and the pricing is cost-sensitive. Care is taken to protect the confidentiality of the risk and compliance assessments for those companies which become clients of the firm.
The Risks. The potential risks arise in both the legal and technological areas. They are many, varied and often interrelated.
We assist policyholders to initiate, and insurers to monitor, effective risk management that includes assessing, containing and insuring against these emerging risks.
Sarbanes-Oxley. This Act has raised many questions from public companies and their management. Many of the provisions, including those which are effective immediately, have broad, general language and leave unclear the details of implementation. For our policyholder and directors and officers underwriting clients, the Act raises coverage questions as well as questions about the Act's long-term impact on D&O coverage.
We have a proprietary, algorithm-based process which assists our clients in assessing compliance with the Act as it is currently written, and offering considered recommendations.
TRIA. President Bush signed the TRIA in November 2002, not as a permanent solution to the problem of acquiring commercially necessary insurance against acts of terrorism, but as a three-year backstop encompassing all commercial property and casualty insurance lines.
For underwriters and policyholders, many questions have arisen concerning the coverage options offered, assessment of the risks to a policyholder, the fair pricing of the coverage, the applicability of certain exclusions and many other as-yet-unresolved concerns.
We offer our clients the strength of our in-depth insurance experience, and useful coordination with one of the premier terrorism risk modeling firms in the country. As with our other risk management initiatives, our objective is to present our clients with reasonably available information with which to make informed risk management decisions.
HIPAA. The HIPAA regulations impose a web of new requirements on virtually every entity that delivers and pays for or that supports the delivery of and payment for healthcare. The regulations are extensive and address in considerable detail the use and disclosure of protected health information (PHI). The final regulations also contain provisions for transaction code sets with which covered entities will be required to comply in order to conduct payment and payment-related transactions electronically, and technological security relating to the confidentiality of PHI.
The focus of our efforts is to assist entities covered by HIPAA to reach full compliance, on time and on budget, in all three areas. In this effort we, and our technology providers, employ proprietary methodologies designed to give senior management the tools to make cost-effective decisions about timely compliance, maintaining compliance in the coming years and risk management.
The Duane Morris proprietary process yields a high-level compliance assessment report indicating which areas of the HIPAA requirements should be treated as:
- critical or high risk areas in which the covered entity is not in compliance, or has no realistic plans to achieve timely compliance, or because its compliance status is impossible to determine because of lack of information;
- on track or medium risk areas in which the entity's existing plans and programs, if implemented, should achieve compliance; and
- in or near compliance or low risk
Services
We assist our insurer, reinsurer and policyholder clients in assessing the legal and technological risk profiles of policyholders, as well as the compliance status with important regulations. Our services include:
- administering, with technology providers, algorithm-based risk assessments in the areas of Internet and terrorism coverage;
- algorithm-based compliance assessments related to HIPAA and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act;
- algorithm-based preapplication questionnaires with input from our Corporate, Intellectual Property, Information Technologies and Telecom and other industry- specific practice groups;
- algorithm-based applications framed to elicit insurable or noninsurable potential exposure using questionnaire information;
- evaluating, from a coverage viewpoint, a prospective insured's completed application and Web site/online presence;
- privacy and information flow audits;
- recommendations on containing potential exposure;
- review of proposed policy manuscripts; and
- follow-up on policyholder corrective actions and further recommendations.
Integration of Relevant Disciplines
Providing effective insurance coverage and risk management representation entails the coordinated integration of relevant disciplines. We are able to integrate the following areas into our insurance coverage and risk management engagements, as appropriate, so that our team of lawyers possesses substantive knowledge of underlying claims: e-commerce, telecommunications, dispute resolution, intellectual property, environmental law, banking and financial services, aviation, tobacco, construction, professional liability, litigation and securities.
e-Commerce. With the rapid development of e-commerce, corporate clients are finding that older models of risk management, including comprehensive general liability, errors and omissions, directors and officers and various business interruption policies, may no longer be adequate to address challenges from the emerging risks arising from potential technology failures, data corruption, breaches of security by hackers and others, privacy breaches, intellectual property claims, contractual issues accelerated by available technology and the sheer speed and expanded capabilities of the technology itself, all of which demand a new level of responsiveness.
The complexity of e-commerce risk management requires the coordination of a number of disciplines. Our insurance coverage and risk management attorneys work with attorneys in other substantive areas, particularly telecommunications and intellectual property. We also work with insurers underwriting cyberspace insurance products, brokers who are able to facilitate insurance acquisition, systems security specialists and auditors, data specialists and e-commerce management consultants to assist clients in arriving at coordinated and comprehensive solutions to their e-commerce and Internet risk management challenges.
Telecommunications and Information Technologies. The simultaneous deregulation of the telecommunications industry in the United States and abroad, convergence and integration of telecommunications and information technologies and the explosive development of the Internet and e-commerce, pose urgent and intricate new challenges for both providers and users of telecommunications and data processing services and products. These challenges include the ability of insurers and policyholders to assess the underlying risks and to insure against them.
We handle matters involving voice, data and video communications; terrestrial and satellite wireless, wireline and broadband networks; broadcast and cable transmission; and convergence with Internet and data processing technologies. We have represented both telecommunications service providers and institutional consumers of telecommunications services.
We also handle geosynchronous and low earth orbit communications satellite finance; structuring, outsourcing and financing in cellular/PCS/GSM network implementation; IP telephony and streaming video; patent preparation and filing on behalf of a leading telecommunications equipment maker; interconnection and collocation for unbundled network elements access and resale; telecommunications equipment purchase, sale and leasing; long distance voice/data bandwidth arbitrage syndication; and radio, broadcast television and cable television licensing and franchising.
We focus on Internet and computer law of the U.S. and Europe and the complex issues arising from the convergence of new information technologies, telecommunications and traditional business. We handle and advise on all aspects of electronic commerce, including digital signatures, cross-border data flows, privacy auditing and implementation practices, secure payment systems, encryption and intellectual property protection. We counsel clients on systems development and outsourcing projects and have litigated systems development disputes.
We also represent providers and users of Internet and intranet networking solutions, software and content in their rights acquisition, development, licensing, intellectual property protection, distribution, service and maintenance of Internet, multimedia and software products and services. We offer general counseling in corporate governance and handle equity and debt financing, including venture capital, bank financing and private and public offerings for companies in high-tech corridors in the U.S. and abroad.
Intellectual Property. The firm's practice includes advising individual and corporate clients regarding patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets; providing comprehensive opinions; assisting in license negotiations; and procuring proprietary rights in all forms of intellectual property. Our insurance coverage and risk management attorneys draw on the experience of our Intellectual Property Practice Group in advising our insurance clients on coverage issues arising from intellectual property concerns.
With our proprietary algorithm-based methodologies, we assist our policyholder and insurer clients in conducting thorough risk assessments in the patent, copyright and trademark areas.
Environmental Law. Our insurance coverage attorneys have been involved in complex environmental insurance coverage cases throughout the United States for a number of years. In these matters, we have worked closely with our Environmental Law Group.
The Group handles governmental enforcement actions and private suits throughout the United States. The firm represents clients in cost recovery and contribution actions brought under the federal and state Superfund statutes, and in enforcement and penalty actions under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and similar state waste management statutes.
Banking and Financial Services. Our lawyers have represented banks, savings associations and their holding companies in more than 40 states in the United States and abroad. We have also represented other providers of financial services, including investment banking and brokerage firms, insurance companies and credit unions in a broad range of regulatory, legislative and business law areas. This experience assists our insurance coverage lawyers in representing insurer clients in the analysis of coverage issues involving financial institutions, particularly including directors and officers liability insurance.
The firm counsels and represents global, superregional, regional, supercommunity and community financial institutions and their parent companies and affiliates in the planning and conduct of a wide range of expansion and restructuring transactions, including domestic and international mergers and acquisitions, strategic divestitures, merger/conversion transactions, purchases and sales of branches and branch systems, product development, the pursuit of new powers, and antitrust counseling and litigation. We assist in the formation of new banks, savings associations and credit unions and in the transformation of banks and nonbanks into other business forms to meet changing demands in the regulatory environment. The firm also provides counseling to management and the boards of directors of banking organizations in general corporate matters, in implementing defensive strategies, and in regulatory, financing, bankruptcy and workout, loan documentation, securities, tax and federal and state legislative matters.
Aviation. The firm represents clients in the commercial and general aviation insurance industry and in the aviation insurance community in the United States. Experienced, high-time pilots in our Aviation Practice Group assist our insurer clients in determining whether particular claims come within the coverage afforded by the policies at issue.
We handle trial work for aircraft manufacturers, aviation component manufacturers, fixed base operators, aircraft owners and aircraft maintenance and repair facilities, including products liability cases involving aviation equipment, aviation crash litigation and aviation environmental matters. As regional counsel for a major aviation insurance group, the firm has also defended clients' insureds in aviation products liability litigation, personal injury and death suits, property damage claims arising out of fixed base operations and aircraft leasebacks.
The core of the firm's aviation group is composed of experienced, high-time pilots who are trial lawyers. The group's lawyers are knowledgeable in aircraft component and airframe design, manufacture and operations. Several lawyers hold degrees in various engineering fields. The core group holds federal commercial pilot licenses with numerous ratings.
Tobacco Litigation. Duane Morris brings extensive knowledge of the activities of the tobacco industry to bear in favor of any carrier's coverage defenses. In our years of work in major tobacco litigation on behalf of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, work that resulted in a settlement worth billions of dollars to the Commonwealth, we acquired substantial, probative evidence supportive of insurer coverage defenses. This evidence includes more than one-half million documents on CD-ROM format and hundreds of deposition transcripts, including that of key tobacco industry upper-level management personnel. Our tobacco litigation attorneys are experienced in complex litigation and are well-positioned to assist in tobacco industry insurance coverage litigation.
Construction Law. A group of the firm's lawyers handle construction matters of all types, including:
- construction litigation
- construction arbitration
- construction-related personal injury and property damage litigation
- mediation and alternative dispute resolution
- preparation and defense of claims involving architects, engineers, contractors and owners
- matters involving performance and payment bond sureties
The firm has represented a number of design, design-build, construction management and construction firms, and has been involved in all phases of contract negotiations, design and construction phase issues and professional liability claims.
Financial Products. Our insurance coverage attorneys represent professional liability insurers as coverage and monitoring counsel in a number of claims relating to directors and officers, ERISA fiduciaries, investment bankers, general partners, lawyers, accountants, securities broker-dealers and insurance agents brokers.
Professional Liability. The firm provides counseling, representation and advocacy services to a wide range of professionals and businesses. Our lawyers advise clients in the following areas:
- attorney and judicial professional responsibility, disciplinary actions and legal malpractice
- accountant liability and licensure inquiries
- actuary liability
- insurance agent and broker errors and omissions litigation
- liability of business and financial planners and consultants
- real estate agent and broker liability
- securities brokers' and consultants' responsibilities under applicable laws and regulations
- cases and investigations prompted by state and federal regulators in insolvencies of regulated businesses
- civil and criminal RICO exposure
Securities. In our representation of our professional liability insurer clients, our insurance coverage attorneys draw on the experience of our Securities Practice Group in claims brought by investment bankers, securities broker-dealers and other securities industry professionals.
The Group assists clients on matters relating to timely and prudent disclosure of material corporate developments, compliance with the SEC's reporting requirements relating to insider trading, the preparation of periodic reports required under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, listing of securities on national securities exchanges or NASDAQ and satisfaction of the requirements of Rule 144 relating to the disposition of restricted securities.
Dispute Resolution. The firm has offered services in mediation, arbitration, conciliation and other means of nonjudicial dispute resolution since the inception of ADR. We assist clients in selecting an appropriate ADR mechanism and drafting the ADR contract provisions, and we represent clients in the ADR process. Our lawyers also serve as independent arbitrators and mediators as well as party-selected arbitrators.
The firm has helped insurers establish expedited claims handling procedures which, when properly applied, not only reduce loss adjustment costs, but also offer the increased ability to avoid losses or set accurate reserves for claims as they emerge, or both.
For more information, please contact Max H. Stern, Peter J. Whalen or any of the practice members referenced in the Attorney Listing.