Motor Vehicle

• Auto Insurance
  Class Action Auto Insurance Case - I was retained to testify regarding a drafting error in the coverage section of a large national insurer's personal auto policy. At issue were the effects on coverage, whether there had been bad faith, and establishing quantification of claimed damages.

Business

• Workers Compensation Insurance
  Workers' Compensation - A large California farm chose its workers' compensation carrier based on a projected dividend if claims history proved favorable. Despite very low losses, the insurer paid only a small amount, citing business reasons related to an acquisition as the reason. I testified regarding the financial impact of declaring dividends based on the insurer's rating and capital structure.
• Commercial Liability Insurance
  The insurance company joining with the MGA has no previous history with the type of business to be written. A personal experience comes to mind involving a large retail jewelry chain that owned an insurance subsidiary whose sole purpose was to provide insurance for merchandise sold and financed. This was low-limit, first-party coverage that the stores required borrowers to carry during the term of finance. A new MGA convinced the insurer to write commercial umbrella liability through a complex web including a reinsurance broker and reinsurer that would, supposedly, fully protect the insurer from ultimate loss. The results were predictably disastrous.
• Professional Liability Insurance
  A contract that applies only to program business. Instead of broad, across-the-board surplus lines business of general liability, property, and auto, these contracts will have narrow restrictions—typically, some singular line of business. It may be some form of professional liability, contractors of a certain type, or some specialized industry. The focus is a relatively small group of homogenous exposures.