Expert Witness, Analyst, and Consultant

Since the early 1980s, I have been regularly asked to analyze unusual insurance claims. Many of these unusual claims involved life insurance—from such things as

• imposters furnishing blood and fluid samples in place of putative insureds; to
• mysterious disappearances of insureds; to
• foreign deaths in suspicious circumstances; to
• policy documents crudely doctored with mis-spelled words—everything from, in one notorious example, a supposed policy document produced to support a claim where the word “spouse” was, amazingly enough, mis-spelled as “spouce”—or with forged signatures; to
• individual and multiple party identity fraud.
• And in one now infamous case, I acted for a life insurer in investigating and pursuing declaratory relief on a suspicious claim for an eight-figure death benefit, after the alleged death of the insured in Mexico. Our representation resulted in a de minimus settlement with the supposed “widow”. The purportedly deceased husband did jail time.

I have done work like this for more than three decades.

In 2023, I was engaged by a well-known plaintiff's personal injury lawyer to evaluate liability insurance issues embedded in settling a catastrophic bodily injury suit almost on the eve of trial. Once settlement was agreed, I also assisted plaintiff's counsel in rebuffing an invalid subrogation claim. 

In the past two years, I have had major engagements advising insured entities on how to get the greatest value out of their directors and officers liability policies. My clients were in several different industries. In one instance, I also assisted a client and its insurance broker in securing manuscript coverage terms for the directors and officers portion of a renewing liability insurance program.

I am part of a group of counsel representing a major agribusiness in defense of an insurer-initiated declaratory action arising out of a lawsuit seeking damages for catastrophic bodily injury. The case includes issues related to the efficacy of a certificate of insurance arranged by a third party.

I and a group of colleagues represented the American Council of Life Insurers, as amicus curiae, in 2023, in connection with a question certified by an Arizona federal district court to the Supreme Court of Arizona.  

I supervised the design and placement of my own law firm’s property/casualty coverages, other than its professional liability program, which was brokered in the London market. That means that, unlike lots of other purported “experts,” I have seen insurance first-hand as someone who acted for a buyer of coverage. Thus, I learned how to work effectively in harness with a talented insurance broker; indeed, working together, the broker and I made the firm’s coverage much broader, while simultaneously reducing significantly the cost of the premium. And when serious claims arose (e.g., the destruction on 9/11 of the firm’s World Trade Center office and 2012 losses due to Superstorm Sandy), I was directly involved in managing those matters, including claims for property losses and business interruption. All of this deepened my understanding of what business organizations and people that buy insurance and assert insurance claims might experience.

I encountered property and casualty insurance during my first year in practice, and I have continued to work in the area ever since. Over the decades, the range of property and casualty issues with which I have become deeply familiar include all of the following:

• Acting as national counsel for a major carrier in evaluating claims for coverage of environmental claims, and as litigation counsel for that carrier in ensuing coverage litigation around the country.
• Representing a well-known property and casualty insurance premium financing company in litigation matters in the Middle Atlantic states over decades.
• Acting as national counsel for an umbrella excess liability carrier on claims analyses and in litigation matters—both those commenced by the carrier and those brought against it.
• Working as “go-to” claim defense litigator for a regional property/casualty carrier on high-exposure and otherwise tough claims and cases. We were the cavalry. In a stretch of over three years, our team had an unbroken string of defense verdicts. I supervised the team, and I was involved in every case. In 2000, I was the lead trial lawyer defending a significant case before a jury in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County. Plaintiff’s counsel expected a seven-figure recovery; but the jury found for the defendant, this continuing our streak.

In the early 2000s, I acted as national defense counsel in connection with exposures stemming from viaticals, life settlements, non-recourse premium financing, and stranger-originated life insurance transactions for these clients. This work of course involved litigation, but also involved appearances before trade associations and a committee of the Delaware legislature concerning proposed anti-carrier legislation. Much of the law developed on these subjects in these years was the product of work done by me and my then Drinker Biddle colleagues. 

During the same period, several well-life insurers regularly consulted me on how to react to underwriting and claims issues on high face amount policies. They expected me to know the law, but also to know the related business, economic, sales, and competitive realities that few others did. This resulted in 2005 in a pioneering secondary market symposium: I conceived, designed, organized, and promoted the symposium, held in Philadelphia. It recurred every two or three years thereafter, eventually transforming itself into a national life insurance symposium, the latest of which was in Philadelphia in December under the auspices of Faegre Drinker.

I am thoroughly familiar with how insurance products reach business, individual, and family consumers. I can speak authoritatively as to the responsibilities and duties of brokers, producers, and BGAs to insurers, but also to the responsibilities of insurers to those who distribute insurance products; I can also speak with authority about the responsibilities of those in the distribution chain to business, individual, and family consumers.

National Counsel for Several Life Insurers on Claims of Significant Exposure. Half a dozen or so clients used my team as the “cavalry,”—we were called into tough cases presenting significant exposure or other challenges. For instance, in the week of the nine–figure Utah bad faith verdict against an insurer in Campbell, I was asked to take over defense of a very tough claim in a very tough place. It was a claim on a credit life/disability policy in West Virginia, with serious liability and bad faith exposure. Plaintiffs’ counsel had stars in their eyes, and never moved off a very significant seven-figure demand. While a plaintiff’s verdict was never in serious doubt, we held the amount to very low six figures.

Making the Law on the Scope of Proofs of Claim. In the Reliance Insurance Company liquidation, I handled the only known case theretofore decided by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on the breath of a release in a proof of claim.

Defeat of Putative Class Action Concerning Annuity “Free-Look” Period. Represented an annuity issuer in a putative class action in federal court in Boston. Summary judgment granted in favor of the annuity issuer.