Domestic Arbitration

Members of Baker & McKenzie's Insurance Disputes Group handle a variety of domestic arbitrations.  A sample of representative matters include the following:

·        Arbitration of a complex, multi-insurer dispute involving tens of millions of dollars in first-party property damage resulting from a warehouse fire at a refrigerated facility.

·         Arbitration, pursuant to an agency agreement, of a dispute between an agency and an insurer with respect to various alleged breaches of the parties' agency agreement regarding a construction-related insurance program.

·         Successful defense of reinsurer in ad hoc arbitration in New York seeking reinsurance coverage for asbestos losses.

·         Recovery of in excess of $5 million in group health reinsurance proceeds from a US reinsurer in ad hoc arbitration pending in Chicago.

·         Arbitration involving a ceding company's alleged failure to maintain the requisite net retention.

·         Representation in a number of arbitrations regarding the attempted aggregation of tens of thousands of asbestos-related personal injury claims under casualty excess of loss treaties (i.e., addressing whether all of the individual asbestos losses constitute one "event" (so as to satisfy – and exceed – the treaties' retentions), or whether each individual loss constitutes a separate "occurrence" and requires a separate retention per claimant per policy year, in which case the treaties' retentions would not be satisfied since settlements and judgments per claimant are generally small).

·         Representation of a large reinsurer in an ad hoc arbitration against a group health insurer seeking a substantial reinsurance recovery. The group health insurer's loss was related to a large book of bad business that had been misrepresented to the reinsurer. The matter was settled on the eve of the evidentiary hearing for significantly less than the outstanding receivable.