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Insurance Litigation and Counseling

Overview

For more than 25 years, Crowell & Moring lawyers have been involved in some of the largest and most complex coverage cases in the country. Our team has litigated hundreds of coverage disputes on behalf of insurance company clients in more than 35 states, Bermuda, and the U.K. Our experience has involved a broad range of industries and businesses such as pharmaceuticals, railroads, aerospace, petrochemicals, municipalities, colleges and universities, and health insurance and managed health care. We have handled cases arising out of climate change, environmental contamination, natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the San Diego wildfires, and a variety of mass torts, including claims relating to asbestos, silica, plastic plumbing, home heating furnaces, over-the-counter cold remedies, benzene, and alleged repetitive stress "injuries," among others. We have represented our insurance company clients in coverage litigation involving employment discrimination, construction defects and construction accidents, sick building syndrome, antitrust, and denial of health benefits.

We also regularly counsel our insurance company clients with regard to emerging insurance coverage issues, such as potential claims relating to nanotechnology, and help them negotiate successful resolutions of disputes and avoid unnecessary coverage litigation whenever possible. Among other things, we prepare opinions of counsel and help develop short-term and long-term strategies for responding to rapidly evolving changes in underlying liability theories. In dispute resolution, we both negotiate directly with policyholders, and we also have extensive experience representing our clients in alternative dispute resolution proceedings, including mediations and arbitrations. We also proactively assist our clients to minimize coverage litigation risks by providing product development advice and counseling during the pre-placement phase of coverage.

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Insights

Firm News | 8 min read | 08.15.24

The Best Lawyers in America 2025 Recognizes 42 Crowell & Moring Attorneys, Three Selected as Lawyer of the Year

Washington – August 15, 2024: The 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 42 Crowell & Moring lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 29 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”...

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Representative Matters

  • We represent Bermuda-based insurers with regard to various pharmaceutical, environmental and other types of claims. For example, we represented an insurance company in an international arbitration with regard to property damage and bodily injury claims – both class action and hundreds of additional individual suits – arising out of an oil spill in New Orleans in connection with Hurricane Katrina.
  • We have represented our insurance company clients in many of the largest asbestos-related coverage actions including actions involving Exxon, Foster Wheeler, HK Porter, U.S. Gypsum, 3M, and Combustion Engineering.
  • National coverage counsel for a risk retention group that insures large numbers of colleges and universities, we litigated a coverage action arising out of sexual abuse allegations made against members of the Duke lacrosse team.
  • We served as strategic counsel to a major insurance company with respect to defending underlying silica claims, including claims asserted in the federal multidistrict silica litigation.
  • We represent several insurance companies against direct actions brought by asbestos personal injury claimants in Texas, Ohio, and West Virginia. These cases seek recovery directly from insurers on the theory that they allegedly failed to warn the claimants about the dangers of exposure to asbestos. We obtained a favorable ruling from an Ohio appellate court affirming the trial court's dismissal of asbestos personal injury claimants' direct actions against numerous insurance companies that insured asbestos manufacturers and distributors.  The court determined that insurance companies do not owe asbestos injury claimants a duty to warn absent a special relationship between the parties.
  • We have defended a wide array of bad faith claims involving significant exposure to our clients. For example, we obtained a full reversal, with retrial, of a $15 million bad faith verdict in a matter initially tried by another law firm involving the duty to defend and investigate a claim under the CGL coverage. We have represented our insurance company clients in numerous environmental coverage actions across the United states including one of the longest-running environmental coverage action in New Jersey. Among other things, we obtained a favorable summary judgment ruling from a California trial court extending the California Supreme Court's landmark Powerine holding to a "non-standard" excess policy issues by our client. As lead appellate counsel, we then successfully defended the ruling in the Court of Appeal and then in the California Supreme Court.

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Insights

Firm News | 8 min read | 08.15.24

The Best Lawyers in America 2025 Recognizes 42 Crowell & Moring Attorneys, Three Selected as Lawyer of the Year

Washington – August 15, 2024: The 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 42 Crowell & Moring lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 29 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”...

View All Insights