Our Insurance Coverage Practice Group provides opinions and serves as coverage litigation counsel as needed. Our work includes a variety of policies, including commercial property, comprehensive general liability, ocean and inland marine, jewelers and furriers block, homeowners and automobile polices. Our Insurance Coverage Practice Group is closely connected to every aspect of our practice, as each Firm Practice Group provides specialists and assistance to the Coverage Practice Group.
Coverage opinions relate to a myriad of issues. At the earliest stage, we identify the contract issues, research the existing law and evaluate the case variables and industry issues, if any. Coverage is not an objective science and cannot be determined in a vacuum. Accordingly, counseling with our clients is critical. When appropriate, we act quickly and aggressively. Coverage litigation, once deliberately determined, is pressed in an assertive and swift manner. We recognize the highly “legal” nature of coverage disputes and are focused and adept in tailoring discovery strategies to serve dispositive motions as well as trial. This “get-in, get-out” strategy consistently produces excellent, cost-effective results for our clients. Some areas in which our Insurance Coverage Practice Group has been involved include:
- Defense of a difference-in-condition insurer against a Fortune 500 insured in which claim was asserted in excess of $150 million for property loss, business interruption loss, contingent business interruption, extra expense and contingent extra expense losses;
- Evaluation of coverage for numerous insurers and reinsurers regarding the “Great Chicago Flood” of 1992 and September 11, 2001 losses;
- Successful declaratory judgment rulings on definition of “insured”;
- Successful declaratory judgment rulings on contractual periods of limitation; and,
- Successful declaratory judgment on rulings on other insurance provisions, “faulties” and inherent vice exclusions, and non-renewal notices.