Photo by Marius Mann on Pexels.com It’s been a while since there has been a court opinion on the defense of late notice in a reinsurance dispute. Recently, a Texas federal court had the pleasure of addressing the issue. In United States Fire Insurance Co. v. Unified Life Insurance Co., No. 3:22-cv-00868-BT (N.D. Tex., Mar. 29, 2024, the cedent sought a reinsurance recovery after a class-action settlement. The reinsurer objected on late notice grounds. The reinsured product was short term medical insurance and the underlying dispute was a claim concerning the classification of medical benefits ..read more

Photo by Florencia Potter on Pexels.com Chasing down reinsurance proceeds from non-US reinsurers is never easy. Multiple US cedents have had to bring proceedings to collect from a wide variety of non-US reinsurers from around the globe. Many of these reinsurers were or are arms of foreign governments and many have gone insolvent or have been privatized. Not surprisingly, some never appear in US proceedings and then seek to resist default judgments. In a recent case, a cedent obtained a default but was temporarily denied a default judgment because of issues with evidence of damages. In National ..read more

Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva on Pexels.com Ever wonder about missing or lost reinsurance contracts? Well today is your lucky day. By chance my latest Expert Commentary-Reinsurance for IRMI.com has been published and it discusses missing or lost reinsurance contracts and the circumstances that may lead to the contract having gone missing. You can read the Commentary here (you may have to register). The post Missing or Lost Reinsurance Contracts appeared first on Schiffer on Re-Insurance ..read more

Photo by Thiago Matos on Pexels.com The New York Court of Appeals (New York’s highest court for those expecting it to be the supreme court) has finally weighed in on the COVID-19 question of what direct physical loss or damage means in a property policy providing business interruption coverage. Not surprisingly, New York joins the vast majority of state and federal courts and affirmed the order below dismissing the complaint. In Consolidated Restaurant Operations, Inc. v. Westport Insurance Corp., No. 7 (N.Y. Ct of App., Feb. 15, 2023), a restaurant group sought coverage under its all-risk com ..read more

Photo by Waly Seck on Pexels.com A retrocessionaire is two steps away from the policy issuing company and the insured so it is a pretty rare day when a retrocessionaire is allowed to pursue a recovery against a law firm that defended an underlying personal injury claim that went south. In Century Property & Casualty Insurance Corp. v. McManus & Richter, No. 2022-05445 (N.Y. App. Div. 1st Dep’t, Feb. 15, 2024), which involved a personal injury claim arising from a construction accident, the demolition company that employed the injured worker failed to maintain the contractually required ..read more

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Reinsurance arbitrations are typically cloaked in confidentiality, often through a written confidentiality agreement or order. Some arbitration agreements include confidentiality provisions as well. In recent years, parties have gone to court to confirm reinsurance arbitration awards, sometimes as an end-around the confidentiality agreement. In 2023, the Second Circuit, in a non-reinsurance case, rejected an attempt to do an end-around an arbitration confidentiality provision. In Abelar v. International Business Machines Corp., 76 F.4th 74 (2nd Cir. 2023), which ..read more

Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.com Public reinsurance companies periodically find themselves defending securities fraud claims based on a drop in stock price or losses that affect the company’s bottom line. In a recent case, a fraud claim was based on the failure to disclose historical loss ratios when reporting the reinsurer’s performance. In Wigglesworth v. Maiden Holdings, Ltd., No. 1:19-cv-05296 (D. N.J., Dec. 19, 2023), a securities fraud claim and related claims were brought against a reinsurer based on the reinsurer’s failure to disclose historical loss ratios when reporting on the ..read more

Photo by Kostas Dimopoulos on Pexels.com In 2023, arbitrability and who must arbitrate continued to be litigated issues, with courts often sending the parties to arbitration consistent with public policy. Courts also addressed arbitrator bias, allocation, discovery of reinsurance information issues, jurisdiction, and direct right of action. And in one case, the court addressed a lost policy issue. Arbitration In the reinsurance context, questions of arbitrability continued to arise in 2023 and the courts continued the trend of enforcing arbitration clauses and compelling arbitration. Arbitrabi ..read more

Below are the Top 5 Posts from Schiffer on Re-Insurance in 2023: When Claims-Made Primary and Occurrence Excess Policies Clash Cedent Prevails on Back-to-Back Reinsurance Recovery Pesky Facts Result in a Denial of Summary Judgment in a Post-Settlement Allocation Case Court Appoints Umpire in Coverage Dispute Court Finds No Personal Jurisdiction in Reinsurance Dispute and Dismisses Case Let me know your favorite post. Tell your friends and colleagues to register to receive new blog posts. Some Schiffer on Re-Insurance Blog Posts are available as Podcasts on Spotify via Anchor. Thank you for rea ..read more

Photo by Yan Krukau on Pexels.com When a party receives and arbitration demand and there is a dispute about whether there is an agreement to arbitrate between the parties, participating in the early stages of the arbitration may be problematic for a subsequent effort to dispute arbitrability. This issue can arise when there has been an assignment or transfer of a reinsurance agreement or the right to the reinsurance receivables to an assignee who seeks to arbitrate against the original counterparty. In a recent case, a New York state court had to address these issues. In Employers Insurance Co ..read more