Members of the team have worked at the forefront of nearly every major insurance coverage dispute over the last twenty years and have secured hundreds of millions in insurance coverage for their clients by employing creative and ever-evolving strategies and techniques in litigation, alternate dispute resolution (ADR), and settlement. The group was recognized as one of the leading Insurance Recovery practices in the United States for 2010 by Chambers USA and U.S. Legal 500.
Kelley Drye's Insurance Recovery practice group:
- Resolves a vast range of insurance coverage claims for its clients, including first-party property and business interruption losses, Directors' and Officers' (D&O) liability, professional errors and omissions liability, mass tort, environmental, employment, and products liability, data loss, privacy and advertising injury liability, and residual value losses.
- Represents class action claimants in path breaking litigation with respect to customs surety bonds.
- Represents clients in multi-party insurance disputes in federal and state courts and ADR proceedings across the country.
- Counsels corporate and individual policyholders in securing insurance coverage.
- Advises corporate clients on insurance issues arising out of mergers, acquisitions and other corporate transactions.
- Develops solutions to complex claims confronting its clients, including those related to environmental hazards, acts of terrorism, and weather-related damage.
Representative Experience
- Represented a major telecommunications provider in the trial court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court, successfully litigating insurance coverage for a products liability lawsuit.
- Successfully negotiated funding by an insurer of life-saving medications for an employee of the Arlington County, Va. government suffering from AIDS.
- Argued before the Delaware Supreme Court, sitting en banc, an issue of first impression involving conflicts of law between Delaware and Alabama on behalf of an asbestos settlement trust.
- Representing a major food company in insurance coverage litigation in Massachusetts federal court seeking coverage for a consumer class action, and for a competitor's suit alleging false advertising under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act.
- Represented a major chemical company and its affiliates with respect to insurance-related issues in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding in the Southern District of New York.
- Represented a Houston-based insulation and refractory contractor in a Texas state court insurance coverage action, and in a bankruptcy proceeding that permanently resolved over 25 years of asbestos bodily injury litigation.
- Over a ten year period, represented a major oil company and its related companies before California state courts in one of the largest environmental insurance coverage actions in history, in extensive California coverage litigation involving asbestos and other toxic torts, and in a series of international arbitrations seeking coverage for an employment discrimination class action lawsuit.
- Served as co-counsel in bankruptcy proceedings in New Orleans to 300 claimants alleging that they contracted cancer as a result of exposure to waste from two nuclear power plants in Pennsylvania.
- Obtained district court rulings of first impression regarding insurer broker malpractice in connection with a broker's failure to secure complete coverage for asbestos liabilities.
- Representing one of the largest petro-chemical companies in the world with respect to insurance coverage for lead pigment claims.
- Represented a national franchisor of financial services in its negotiations with insurance carriers, successfully securing coverage for privacy-related class actions.
- Represented a national food service franchisor over insurance and indemnification issues in its relationships with franchisees.
- Represented various national companies regarding privacy-related and data security claims, including securing insurance coverage for the defense and indemnity of those claims.
- Counseled business owners and homeowners in coverage disputes arising from property damage caused by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.
- Represented, in both an arbitration proceeding and in a state court action, a group of mass-tort defendants with respect to insurance coverage for unfunded joint and several tort settlements (so-called "Shortfall Litigation") resulting in the recovery of several hundred million dollars.
