Services for Risk Managers
We have had the honor and privilege of providing legal services to risk managers of very large multinational corporations for more than 30 years. All of our large corporate clients are Fortune 1,000 companies, and several are Fortune 100 companies. And several of our Fortune 500 clients have been our clients for more than 30 years. We provide three distinct legal services to our risk manager clients, as explained below.
With respect to insurance policy reviews, we provide our corporate policyholder clients with advice that can improve the coverages and wordings in many different types of insurance, including but not limited to the following:
- Directors & Officers Liability
- Employment Practices Liability
- Fiduciary Liability
- Professional Liability
- Bankers Professional Liability
- Tech E&O/Cyber
- Stand-alone Cyber
Not only do we provide a list of wording changes to make, but, depending on the line of coverage at issue, and insurer used, we also can provide a PDF file of endorsements and/or excerpts of manuscript policies that contain the coverages and wordings that we know the carrier can add to the policy.
Market-Based Experience
Our wording change requests are based in reality, not dreams. We provide wording requests based only on wordings available in the market for the line of coverage at issue. We know what wordings are available from our library of policies we have negotiated the past 30+ years on all of the lines of coverage noted above.
Case Law Integration
In addition to a comparative analysis based on currently-available wordings in the market, we also bring to bear key case law that is important to take into account when negotiating certain policy wording on all of the lines of coverage noted above. Examples of how we take case law into account when negotiating policy wording are explained on Michael Rossi’s LinkedIn account, via Advisory Notes he posts on a regular basis, that explain the issues we are negotiating in our policy reviews.
For any policy reviewed, we are happy to have a call with the insurer and our corporate client’s insurance broker to negotiate the wording change requests.
We excel at this, given our knowledge of policy wording provided by many carriers throughout the US and UK, the case law that supports why we are making the policy wording change request, and acceptable fallback or compromise wordings that can be used to address the issues we are raising. The reputation we have developed in regard to negotiating policy wording changes with a carrier is “firm but fair”. We like that reputation, and believe it appropriately describes our approach.
A Note About Our D&O Insurance Practice
Michael Rossi, Esq. has been advising on D&O insurance program structures, specific policy offerings, and policy wordings in several different types of D&O policies for more than 30 years. He is personally responsible, working closely with several brokers and carriers in the US and London Markets, for the creation of certain “best in class” wordings that are currently in use in several D&O policy offerings for the North American and UK markets.
In the past 30+ years, Mr. Rossi has been involved in more than 1,400 D&O renewals, and he works on more than 60 D&O renewals a year, in addition to auditing another 20 or so D&O programs a year for prospective clients.
In those 30+ years, Mr. Rossi has developed strong, collaborative relationships with leading carriers in the US and UK markets that provide Primary D&O and Excess/DIC Side A insurance for publicly traded companies. These insurance carriers are not clients of Insurance Law Group, Inc., but rather collaborate friends of the firm.
Based on his experience and knowledge of insurance case law and D&O policy forms and wordings, his relationships with key carriers in the market, his ability to improve D&O programs for companies large and small, and his continuous creation of policy wording to address new and emerging issues, Mr. Rossi is regarded by several insurance professionals as one of the best US-based D&O insurance transactional lawyers for corporate policyholders in the country.
Contract Negotiation
One service we provide is assistance in negotiating insurance provisions in contracts for a large volume of a company’s contracts. This service typically involves us acting as first point of contact for a company’s legal and contracts personnel for contracts where the company is being asked to maintain insurance, to enforce the Risk Management Department’s Guidelines on insurance provisions in contracts. If we cannot get the other party to the contract to agree to our changes to the insurance provisions, we escalate to our risk manager contact for the company.
Checklist/Playbook Creation
Another service we provide is the creation of tools for a company’s legal and contracts personnel to use to help them negotiate insurance provisions in contracts. Such tools include playbooks, checklists and the like, explaining the Risk Management Department’s Guidelines for negotiating insurance provisions in contracts where the company is being required to maintain insurance.
Template Drafting
For a company’s contracts where the company is requiring another party to maintain insurance, typically a service provider, supplier or other type of vendor to the company, we help the company draft templates for insurance provisions that they want to require from the other party. With respect to such templates, we also draft negotiation-guidance manuals to help company legal and contracts personnel respond to a service provider’s, supplier’s or other type of vendor’s requested changes to those insurance provisions.
We are proud of our track record of being able to overcome reservations of rights and claim denials with letters, phone calls and meetings, a majority of the time.
The foregoing said, there have been times when we have had to refer a post-loss matter out to coverage litigation counsel. That happens in only two scenarios. First, sometimes, no matter the effort, an insurer will not act reasonably in the adjustment of a claim or loss. In that event, we refer out the matter to coverage litigation counsel.
Second, for certain matters, we can assess right away that the coverage issues in play necessitate a decision by the insured to determine whether they should institute coverage litigation in a particular state immediately in order to maximize a positive result. In that event, we refer out the matter to coverage litigation counsel to do a forum litigation analysis and advise on the pros/cons of immediately instituting coverage litigation in a particulate state.
Ready to Improve Your Insurance Program?
Whether you’re a risk manager looking to strengthen your company’s coverage or an insurance broker ready to grow your business, we’re here to help.