PRACTICE

Insurance

Overview

Pierson Ferdinand’s Insurance Team possesses a wealth of knowledge in insurance, spanning transactional, litigation, and regulatory matters. We pride ourselves on delivering innovative solutions with a strong understanding of the industry, consistently providing effective and creative counsel. With backgrounds in large law firm practices and corporate legal departments, each Team member brings a comprehensive perspective to issues concerning life insurance, annuities, property and casualty, environmental, cyber, architects and engineers, directors and officers, life settlements, premium finance, financial guaranty, title, and healthcare.

Our diverse client base includes United States and foreign insurance and reinsurance companies, special purpose vehicles, agents, brokers, investment banks, service providers, investors, service contract providers, high net worth individuals, and policyholders. Moreover, we offer focused dispute resolution services to both insurance service providers and coverage buyers, leveraging our knowledge in general corporate, securities law, and derivatives to provide holistic solutions to complex challenges.

  • Full Spectrum of Business Transactions

    Like traditional large law firms, we regularly assist clients in the full spectrum of business transactions and related company matters, a large portion of which involves mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, banking and credit, employment, regulatory, corporate governance and board advisory, intellectual property, and financial restructuring and reorganization, among others.

  • Leveraging Technology

    Our Corporate team leverages cutting edge technology in all aspects of practice and our diverse all-partner teams focus on what matters most to our clients and stakeholders, delivering outcomes through shared values of strength, diversity, and collaboration.

  • Forging Close Partnerships

    We believe in forging close partnerships with our clients to better understand their business operations, enabling us to provide more effective counsel and to deliver exceptional value during pivotal moments that often shape profoundly the trajectory and success of our clients’ businesses.

  • Effective Low-Leverage Platform

    Our unique low-leverage platform is not only more cost-effective, it allows us to focus on fewer, targeted engagements than our peers at traditional, elite law firms. This model allows us to get closer to our clients and to know their businesses, preferences, and cadence, and to ultimately meet our clients where they are.

Capabilities

Our Insurance practice includes:

  • Litigation and Dispute Resolution: Our seasoned Insurance Team excels in litigation, representing insurers, insureds, sureties, and reinsurers. We have handled a wide array of insurance and surety issues, including cases for insurers and secondary insurers concerning allegations of insurance fraud, bad faith, negligent failure to settle, duty to defend, duty to indemnify, and excess carrier rights and obligations. We also provide defense to insureds assigned by insurers in the following insurance lines, including, without limitation: architects and engineers, cyber, directors and officers, environmental, premises, professional, and technology errors and omissions. We handle these matters in arbitration and state and federal court.

  • Capital Markets: Our Team is well-versed in life settlement and premium finance transactions, offering comprehensive services to industry participants, including life settlement providers, intermediaries, financing entities, institutional investors, and funds. Our services encompass the establishment and structuring of dedicated funds, development and multi-state filing of necessary seller-facing life settlement documentation, service provider documentation, investor documentation, as well as structuring, due diligence, and negotiation of sale and acquisition of life settlement and premium finance portfolios and financing facilities. We also ensure regulatory compliance in life settlements and premium finance, in addition to creating structures for online platforms designed to facilitate life settlement transactions.

    Our experience also includes structuring and investing in insurance-linked securities, including catastrophe bonds and sidecar transactions covering various natural perils and financing structures. We cover a wide spectrum of insurance and securities documentation, from Triple X, A Triple X, life insurance, and annuity arbitrage bonds to mortgage-linked notes, weather-linked notes, residual value insurance, life settlements, premium finance funding transactions, embedded value, and closed block transactions.

  • Insurance and Reinsurance Transactions: Our Team assists in establishing both on-shore and off-shore captive insurance companies and captive insurance programs, whether as stand-alone entities or as part of comprehensive wealth management programs. Our services extend to reinsurance transactions of all forms, serving on-shore and off-shore reinsurers, credit for reinsurance matters, and establishing qualifying reinsurance trusts and service agreements. We also aid in establishing on-shore and off-shore insurers and reinsurers, covering both special purpose and fully operational entities, as well as bank-owned and corporate-owned life insurance transactions. We also advise insurers on reservation of rights and disclaimers, including drafting of these documents when necessary.

  • Corporate Organization and Reorganization: Our Team excels in managing mergers, acquisitions, and investments in insurance companies across all lines of business, both by United States and foreign acquirers. We navigate United States and foreign regulatory requirements, whether through stock transactions, asset purchases, combinations, or reinsurance. Furthermore, we provide expertise in corporate restructurings, including spin-offs, divisions, divestitures, establishment of holding companies, and various other forms of corporate reorganizations. We are adept at establishing onshore and offshore insurance and reinsurance companies, including captive insurers, transformers, cell companies, and series entities.

  • Regulatory: Our regulatory services cover a wide range of areas, including insurance insolvency and receiverships, licensing and agent issues, compliance, permitted investments, risk-based capital, marketing and sales practices, and service contracts and extended warranties.

  • Cyber Insurance: In the evolving landscape of cyber insurance, we offer comprehensive services. This includes monitoring claims for excess insurers on cyber insurance towers, drafting cyber insurance policies and endorsements, considering existing ISO cyber forms, providing coverage advice and counseling for cyber insurers, and prosecuting or defending declaratory judgment actions for cyber insurers. We also advise cyber insurers on reservation of rights and disclaimers.