We advise cedant and reinsurer clients on all stages of claims, including coverage reviews and litigating and arbitrating contentious claims. The team has had successful results for London market and global clients in jurisdictions across the world.
Property
The team’s experience in property reinsurance includes:
- Representing reinsurers on coverage issues in relation to over £2bn Covid-19 related losses, spanning jurisdictions including the US, South Africa, Australia and Europe. The team represented Reinsurers in Covea v UnipolRe, a claim heard before the Commercial Court and the Court of Appeal, and numerous arbitrated coverage disputes.
- Leading a global arbitration relating to the defence of an aggregated claim for $180m wildfire losses in Canada.
- Advising on the recovery of 2011 Thai floods losses under reinsurance and retrocession contracts governed by Japanese law.
- Acting on behalf of a retrocedant on the aggregation of Australian wildfire losses under a retrocession contract.
- Advising on a claim under a property catastrophe cover concerning the allocation of Hurricane Maria and Irma losses which was litigated in the Puerto Rican Courts.
- Advising on coverage under reinsurance contracts in respect of the 2018 Californian wildfire losses.
Liability and Specie
The team has extensive experience working on specie and liability reinsurance claims including the following:
- Advising reinsurers in arbitration proceedings in relation to the aggregation of 9/11 aviation losses, and acting in leading claims concerning “event” based aggregation: Simmonds v Gammell and Heraldglen v Aioi.
- Acting on behalf of Reinsurers in a £90m claim in the Commercial Court for the recovery of contingency losses under a multiline excess of loss treaty.
- Advising on a claim for MTBE losses presented by a large European carrier to a reinsurance governed by German law.
- Advising Reinsurers in relation to a claim to a reinsurance contract relating to liability losses arising form the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2013.
Aviation and Marine
The team’s aviation and marine reinsurance experience includes advising on:
- Reinsurance exposures to the aviation War and All Risks losses arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- Losses presented to aviation reinsurance overs in relation to aircraft damaged at Tripoli airport, Libya during the Arab Spring.
- Losses to aircraft at Khartoum Airport during the Sudan crisis.
- Coverage issues relating to losses arising from the grounding of 737MAX aircraft following the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes in 2018.
- The aggregation of losses under a reinsurance of a Hull and Machinery book relating to a grounding offshore Indonesia.
Non-Contentious Reinsurance
We regularly advise on a range of non-contentious issues in relation to reinsurance including:
- Advising on the regulatory and commercial issues arising from the authorisation of reinsurers and reinsurance intermediaries.
- Reviewing and/or drafting a wide range of reinsurance policy and treaty wording in both the Lloyd's and non-Lloyd's markets.
- Advising on reinsurance as a risk mitigation or capital relief tool including FAL reinsurance at Lloyd's.
- Considering and advising on collateralised reinsurance issues including the use of reinsurance trusts and/or LOCs.
