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Practice/Industry Group Overview
We Speak Our Clients' Language
Saul Ewing's Insurance Practice Group is a team of attorneys well-versed in the insurance industry. Our attorneys include Constance B. Foster, a former Insurance Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Paul Hummer, whose complex civil litigation practice focuses on litigation involving insurers and reinsurers. Many of our attorneys obtained extensive industry experience working in the insurance industry. In addition to law degrees, various attorneys hold ARM, AIM, or AIC designations, another mark of their career commitment to insurance.
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Services Available
A Knowledge Base to Anticipate and Manage Change
We advise clients on a wide range of issues, including demutualization and convergence, reinsurance, insolvencies, and market conduct and other enforcement matters. We monitor legislative, regulatory and case law developments that will affect the insurance industry generally and our clients' businesses in particular. We apply this knowledge to help our clients develop strategic plans to meet future challenges. For example, we have anticipated and counseled clients on how the corporate accountability standards mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, will broadly affect corporate governance and financial reporting by both publicly traded and non-public companies in the insurance industry. We regularly share such insights with clients and help clients anticipate and manage change.
A Team of Insurance Professionals with an Interdisciplinary Approach
We use an interdisciplinary approach to address our clients' needs in all facets of insurance and reinsurance transactions, regulatory issues and litigation. Each of our Insurance Practice Group attorneys brings to the client’s table a fundamental understanding of the insurance business, regulatory perspectives and litigation strategies to complement his or her particular legal discipline. These industry-focused attorneys form the core of client teams that may include, as needed, attorneys from other Saul Ewing practice groups such as Business, Real Estate, Health Law, and more than 70 attorneys in our Litigation Department. Our clients benefit from Saul Ewing's interdisciplinary approach to the resolution of complex legal challenges with our client-tailored teams of Insurance Practice Group professionals.
Representative Matters
- Saul Ewing's Insurance Practice Group obtained a victory in July 2008 from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Murray v. Greenwich Insurance Company, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 14270 (8th Cir. 2008). The Court of Appeals reversed a federal district court ruling that firm client Greenwich Insurance Company owed a defense obligation under a professional liability policy. The Eighth Circuit panel agreed that firm client Greenwich Insurance was correct in denying any coverage obligation due to the direct operation of the policy's "Exclusion D," barring coverage for defense or indemnity concerning claims "arising out of" misappropriation or improper use of funds or the inability or failure to pay or safeguard funds held for others.
The real estate professionals employed by IPM Realty, Inc. in Minnesota were sued by two former clients, who alleged that the agents had solicited their participation in Florida real estate ventures but then wrongfully withheld substantial refundable deposits made in connection with those ventures. The insureds asserted, and the district court agreed, that there was a potential coverage obligation because one of the counts alleged against the insureds—a negligent misrepresentation claim—did not necessarily implicate activities anticipated by their policy's Exclusion D. On appeal, Saul Ewing argued the district court's holding ignored not only a plain reading of the underlying complaint but also specific allegations that had been incorporated by reference into the negligent misrepresentation claim. The Eighth Circuit agreed.
- Saul Ewing’s Insurance Group assisted a Mid-Atlantic based bank holding company in sale valued at $38 million dollars.Members of Saul Ewing’s Insurance Practice Group assisted a Mid-Atlantic-based, NASDAQ-listed, bank holding company in its sale to another NASDAQ-listed bank holding company in a deal valued at $38 million dollars.
- Saul Ewing’s Insurance Practice Group assisted a health insurance provider in a unique $50 million financing.
Members of Saul Ewing’s Insurance Practice Group assisted a major provider of health insurance in an unique $50 million financing, whereby the company pledged a portion of its investment portfolio to secure its payment obligations under the loan documents in an arrangement in which the pledged investment assets were still deemed to be admitted under statutory accounting principles.
- Our Business and Insurance Practice Groups handled a transaction in which our client, an insurance company representing $33 million in premiums, transferred its assets and liabilities to another insurance company.
Our client is an insurance company representing $33 million in policies in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. When our client transferred its assets and liabilities to another insurance company, attorneys in our Business and Insurance departments handled the legal aspects of the transaction. The other party, a publicly traded holding company for nine regional property/casualty insurance companies, acquired our client’s policies, operations, and office facilities.
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