Practice Areas: Insurance Coverage

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Global Warming Litigation and D&O Insurance Coverage Issues (2/19/2010)

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Insurance is a universal fact of business life. Everyone has to have it; common sense requires it.

McGuireWoods knows getting the most from it requires strategic decisions about coverage and claims. We assist our clients with every aspect of insurance, from advice on the appropriate coverage, and risk management strategies, to assistance with claims processing and negotiation, through litigation, if necessary.

Our track record speaks for itself.

Corporate clients and other policyholders have recovered substantial amounts from insurance companies thanks to the efforts of McGuireWoods Insurance practice lawyers, 11 of whom are Fellows of the American College of Trial Lawyers. McGuireWoods insurance practice also knows the best ways to keep clients out of the courtroom.

More than two dozen lawyers in multiple offices handle everything from coverage advice to trial. McGuireWoods’ insurance coverage counseling & litigation group provides advice and handles disputes over the following types of policies:

• Commercial general liability coverage
• Directors and officers coverage
• Errors and omissions coverage
• Products liability coverage
• Business interruption claims
• First party property and boiler coverage
• Professional liability policies
• Employee dishonesty issues and claims
• Toxic tort claims
• This practice also provides advice to corporations, banks and other business entities on insurance issues as they relate to these and other matters.
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Regulatory and corporate issues
• Receivership
• Going public
• Federal and state securities

McGuireWoods’ Insurance practice offers relevant experience, strategic counsel and the latest technological support. Perhaps more importantly, we value, and are driven by, relationships.
Representative Work

The following matters reflect the group's capabilities across a range of industries and issues:

• Negotiation of various facets of coverage for a Fortune 200 company for its defense costs and potential liability associated with multiple-party asbestos premises lawsuits in Louisiana, Texas, California and Washington. The representation required negotiation of agreements with a spin-off company regarding indemnity duties and rights to insurance coverage, identification and retrieval of applicable insurance policies from the 1950s through the 1980s, placing on notice all relevant carriers including primary and excess carriers, and drafting cost sharing agreements among the client and all of the primary carriers over the relevant thirty-year period.
• Recovery under a commercial property policy on a million dollar inventory loss due to employee theft. McGuireWoods represented the appliance distributor in the accounting negotiations with its insurer.
• Analysis for acquisition purposes of the asbestos exposure of a division of a company. McGuireWoods evaluated the likelihood of exposure to suits based on asbestos-related injury, evaluated the probable cost of the exposure, and determined whether the division had sufficient insurance to maintain profitability. The representation involved analysis of over 150 policies and a number of settlement agreements dating as far back as the Wellington Agreement in 1985.
• Representation of a Fortune 500 company in persuading its carrier to provide defense and indemnity in connection with, and ultimately to settle, a gunshot case in Western Kentucky.
• Representation of an entertainment/hospitality corporation in persuading its primary and excess carriers to contribute $1.4 million to settlement of a Missouri class action brought under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
• Representation of a municipality against various underwriters at Lloyds of London on an insurance backed warranty given for a bridge surface coating. After McGuireWoods obtained a verdict for the municipality at trial, the underwriters unsuccessfully appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court.
• Representation of a national design/build firm in litigation with a subcontractor’s liability insurance carrier. After McGuireWoods resolved a major issue on summary judgment, the case settled for more than the policy limits.
• Representation of a Fortune 200 company on coverage issues related to multiple individual and class action cases alleging personal injury from adulterated food.
• Prosecution and mediation of a nine figure Bermuda Form claim for a Fortune 50 company against an offshore high excess insurance carrier for catastrophic losses incurred in pattern product liability claims and lawsuits.