Broderick, Stirn & Regan acts as counsel to insurance and reinsurance companies, managing agents and intermediaries, active underwriters as well as run-off entities.
The Firm handles both ceded and assumed reinsurance claims and has extensive experience representing clients in negotiation, arbitration, and litigation of such claims. Other areas of the Firm’s practice include drafting and analyzing proposed contract language; structuring MGA agreements; assisting clients on matters involving captive insurance and reinsurance relationships; and providing advice on corporate and regulatory matters and on commutations.
In addition, the Firm’s principals have represented assuming companies and reinsurers involved in pooling arrangements and in that capacity have addressed issues of underwriting, claims handling, and management authority, discrepancies between slip wordings and underlying policies, and offsets. The Firm has also provided counsel to pool managers and insurance and reinsurance fiduciaries.
The Firm is alert to the desirability of avoiding unnecessary arbitration and litigation, and works closely with clients to achieve resolutions of problems through improved contract wording, negotiation, or other measures. Where such resolutions cannot be achieved, the Firm draws on the experience of its attorneys in mediation, arbitration, and litigation. The Firm has represented clients in a number of arbitrations and court proceedings, 
involving such issues as the definition of "loss occurrence," allocation of losses, the scope of ECO coverage, delegation of underwriting authority, premium computation, fiduciary obligations, and various disputes over the proper interpretation of reinsurance and retrocessional contracts.
The Firm took a leading role in insurance industry initiatives to improve the efficiency of the reporting of environmental claims to reinsurers. Today the Firm prides itself in being on the cutting edge with respect to other situations that present difficult issues of allocation. Specific areas in which its attorneys have handled complex claim matters include asbestos (products and non-products), environmental pollution, DES, breast implant, tainted blood, fen-phen, tobacco, construction defect, and director and officer liability claims.
The Firm is constantly monitoring court and arbitration decisions affecting the reinsurance industry and serves as counsel to the Reinsurance Claims Study Group, which educates member companies on legal trends and developments of interest to reinsurance claims professionals. Examples of recent issues monitored by our attorneys include:
- London Reinsurance Documentation Requirements for asbestos claims
- Recoverability of punitive damages under ECO clauses
- Retrocessional coverage for commutations
- Projections for future asbestos-related liabilities
- Coverage implications of asbestos non-products claims
- Acceleration of asbestos liabilities due to bankrupt insureds
- Other emerging sources of bodily injury and property damage liability
Attorneys of the firm are frequent speakers at reinsurance and insurance conferences and seminars, have published on reinsurance-related topics, and have served as consultants to foreign counsel on issues of U.S. insurance and reinsurance law.
