Areas of Work

Insurance and Reinsurance

Insurance and reinsurance law is a major part of our work. We boast some of the leaders in the field and are regularly involved in the leading cases of the day. A number are confidential arbitrations, but others include high profile or reported cases such as the litigation arising out of the collapse of Parmalat in Italy, the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, the grounding of the Exxon Valdez and the film finance litigation.

We are instructed in all aspects of work undertaken in the London market including directors' and officers' policies, product and public liability insurance, professional indemnity, run-off policies,  PHI, and facultative and treaty reinsurance. We excel at working in partnership with claims managers and underwriters as well as some of the leading solicitors in the field and are well-known for taking an approachable and practical approach to our cases and our clients.

Recent cases and advisory work have included issues such as construction of policy and treaty wordings, breach of warranties, avoidance for non-disclosure and misrepresentation, aggregation clauses, affirmation, waiver and estoppel, claims co-operation and control clauses and follow the settlements clauses, ICOB and claims with a foreign dimension.

Many cases involve multi-party litigation and we regularly represent insureds, insurers, insurance brokers and third party claimants. In addition to coverage issues, we are often instructed by insurers to defend the interests of the insured in the underlying claim such as professional negligence or in a subrogated or assigned claim.

We regard the breadth of our practice areas as a key asset, as we are uniquely positioned to offer not only unrivalled expertise in all areas of insurance and reinsurance, but also in-depth knowledge of complementary areas of work such as employment, personal injury, tax litigation, sport and pensions. This gives us a distinct advantage in a wide range of areas such as permanent health insurance (PHI), employers' liability insurance, sickness and accident claims, claims under the Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 1930 and cases involving the Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB). Exposure to other areas of work means that even our most junior tenants are skilled advocates with extensive experience of key aspects of advocacy including cross-examination and legal submissions.

In addition, members of chambers have written or contributed to many books and articles on insurance and reinsurance law, including Alison Padfield (Insurance Claims, 2nd ed, 2007) and Colin Edelman QC, Andrew Burns and Akash Nawbatt (The Law of Reinsurance, 2005).