Insurance Litigation

Overview

Litigation involves risk in any context. For insurers, it can be particularly damaging. Whether you’re a party in a suit, defending a policyholder, or upholding a duty to indemnify, we’re prepared to manage your high-risk cases.

Our attorneys provide coverage advice, develop strategy in complex coverage actions involving primary, excess, E&O, and D&O policies, and resolve complicated, large-scale disputes. We’ve served as coverage counsel for large insurers on multiple matters, including appellate, bad faith, construction, environmental, asbestos, and unfair competition.

Our litigators handle any commercial matter, from malpractice, IP, and advertising claims, to fraud, intentional torts, and punitives. And we draw on the targeted advice of our industry specialists in real estate, financial services, energy, and more.

Rely on us to help you manage any risk your business faces.

Representative experience

• Defended insurance company against former agent’s $25 million wrongful termination claim, including alleged fraud and interference. Obtained summary judgment with respect to all of former agent’s claims. Prevailed in Eastern District of California jury trial on all counterclaims, and awarded all damages sought.
• Secured summary judgment win for insurance company in the Northern District of California in connection with alleged underlying property damage. We argued (and the court agreed) that the lawsuit was based purely on speculative allegations
• Obtained an appellate victory for 12 insurers in Rhode Island Superior Court in a decades-long dispute between the insurers, which handle auto body repair claims, and several auto body repair shops. The 12 insurers were respondents in an administrative action initiated by the shops before the hearing officer who was appointed by the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation. The decision by the hearing officer overwhelmingly and substantially rejected the shops’ claims that the insurers violated regulations when they filed their auto body labor rate survey responses with the state. The shops appealed the decision to Rhode Island Superior Court. We argued that the insurers did not offend the law by relying on factors other than the survey results in setting their prevailing rates, and that the court should reject the arguments put forth by the shops because the decision by the hearing officer was not clearly erroneous and therefore could not be overturned. The Superior Court’s business calendar judge agreed, affirming the hearing officer’s ruling.
• Secured an appellate win that reversed a trial court’s summary judgment ruling and held that the Massachusetts guaranty fund is entitled to recover workers’ compensation benefits paid to claimant on behalf of high net worth insured
• Won an appellate decision that held an insurer’s breach of its duty to defend a medical malpractice suit before becoming insolvent does not bar the Connecticut guaranty association from contesting its obligation to pay a claim made under the insolvent insurer’s policy and that the underlying claim was barred by the policy’s vicarious liability exclusion
• Secured a reversal of a trial court’s summary judgment ruling and holding that additional insured endorsement to sub-subcontractor’s commercial general liability insurance policy, providing coverage for additional parties “as required by contract, provided the contract is executed prior to loss,” required that the contracting parties have a signed, written contract in order for contractor and subcontractor to be covered as additional insureds under policy
• Insurance guaranty fund, we prevailed at trial obtaining a $48.9 million judgment. In this reinsurance dispute, the guaranty fund presented a claim to the Midland estate for reimbursement of a settlement the guaranty fund had entered into with an insured involving hundreds of thousands of asbestos bodily injury claims. At trial, the reinsurers attempted to second-guess the guaranty fund’s settlement with the insured, alleging that the settlement was not entered into in good faith and on a reasonable basis. After several days of trial, the reinsurers withdrew their objections to the guaranty fund’s claim, resulting in the claim being allowed in full, including attorney’s fees and costs.
• Several insurance guaranty funds, we successfully resolved a $25 million claim against a policyholder. We sought reimbursement of amounts paid by the guaranty funds on the ground that the policyholder had failed to exhaust coverage under a solvent insurance policy before seeking recovery from the guaranty funds.
• Won an affirmance of a trial court’s summary judgment ruling that a workers’ compensation self-insurance group is barred from recovering from the Massachusetts guaranty fund because such a group is a member of the insurance industry and thus its claim is not a “covered claim” within the meaning of G.L. c. 175D, § 1(2)).
• Prevailed in commercial arbitration case involving insurance coverage; secured arbitration award in favor of client R.J. Wilson & Associates.

Recognition

• Nixon Peabody has been named a Tier 1 firm in Manchester for Insurance Law by U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” in 2023.