|
More often than not, our clients’ insurance portfolios include tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of coverage issued by insolvent insurers unable to pay their liabilities or by solvent insurers proposing “solvent schemes” to cut off their long-tail liabilities to policyholders. Maximizing and preserving the value of these insurance assets is an important part of our policyholder coverage practice.
During the past 30 years, we have filed proofs of claims with dozens of insolvent insurers in the United States and abroad and with state guaranty funds. We have obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in claims allowances and payments from insolvent insurance companies in the United States, England and Bermuda, and have negotiated settlements with state guaranty funds involving tens of millions of dollars. We have developed strong working relationships with certain liquidators in the United States and abroad. Within the last two years, we have also vigorously and successfully opposed the efforts of solvent companies to terminate their obligations to policyholders by, in effect, forced commutations.
Representative Matters
- We are assisting a number of clients including Exxon Mobil Corporation, Goodrich, Goodyear, and Textron in opposing efforts by solvent London Market companies to use so-called “solvent schemes of arrangement” to curtail their coverage obligations to policyholders facing long-tail liabilities, such as asbestos, silica, or environmental claims. We have recently won two key victories in UK courts challenging solvent schemes of arrangement in relation to The British Aviation Insurance Company Limited (“BAIC”) and the Willis Faber Underwriting Management pool companies (“WFUM”) respectively.
- We have negotiated sales of insolvency receivables by our clients to private equity groups in order to liquidate these assets.
- We have represented policyholders on creditors’ committees on numerous US and UK/Bermuda insolvencies including Transit Casualty Company in the United States, the “KWELM” Companies in England, and Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company in Bermuda.
- We have represented policyholders in United States Bankruptcy Court proceedings ancillary to foreign insurance insolvency proceedings.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|