High Exposure Claims, Coverage & Bad-Faith Defense

As part of Alston & Bird’s comprehensive insurance practice, we defend carriers in coverage and bad-faith litigation under numerous types of policies, including directors and officers liability, errors and omissions, professional liability, environmental liability, employment practices liability, life insurance, and disability insurance. Our experience includes representation in individual coverage and class actions. And we focus on defending institutional issues—those that go to the very heart of your business practices—often targeted in bad-faith litigation by sophisticated plaintiffs’ and class counsel on multiple fronts in large-scale litigation. We often serve as national coordinating counsel to direct a strategic defense and harmonize discovery efforts in multifaceted claims and regulatory activity and regulation-driven litigation. Our seasoned attorneys have represented institutional policyholders across the country in complex commercial coverage disputes.

• Represented one of the nation’s largest carriers as overall coverage and regulatory coordinating counsel for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
• Represented the nation’s largest property and casualty insurer in all facets of the litigation following Hurricane Ike, coordinated defense and discovery strategy across multiple firms, and handled trials in Texas courts of individual cases with institutional issues. Multiple defense verdicts enabled a global settlement on favorable terms.
• Representing an insurer in briefing and oral argument at the Georgia Supreme Court in a precedent-setting case on bad-faith “Holt demand” liability. First Acceptance Insurance Company of Georgia Inc. v. Robert W. Hughes, Jr., No. S18C0517 (Ga.).
• Represented a multinational insurance company as coverage counsel for high-exposure and potential bad-faith claims on professional liability policies.
• Defended a Mexico-based insurance company against bad faith and other claims by its insured, the world’s largest producer of Mexican corn products.
• Defeated class certification of a Colorado class action alleging that insureds were entitled to PIP benefits that were never offered or paid pursuant to Colorado statute. The complaint requested reformation of contract pursuant to the Colorado statute and alleged breach of contract, bad faith, willful and wanton breach of contract, and violation of state deceptive trade practice laws.
• Defended a major property and casualty insurer against claims of bad faith in a declaratory judgment action involving over 50 defendants stemming from a large natural gas explosion that resulted in damage to numerous surrounding properties, implicating about a dozen other insurance companies.
• Obtained a declaratory judgment for an insurer in the first known case of an insured medical professional seeking professional liability coverage for breach of fiduciary duty. The underlying claims against the insured were brought as a class action and alleged, among other things, that the insured professional breached a fiduciary duty owed to the patient/claimant.
• Engaged in property coverage analysis and negotiations for $100 million in contingent business interruption coverage relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
• Obtained summary judgment for an insurer on several policy exclusions in an interpleader action against 45 defendants to resolve competing claims totaling more than $30 million and address coverage issues on a D&O policy.