Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP advises clients in connection with a wide variety of issues relating to insurance and reinsurance, based on an in-depth understanding of the industry.  Our expertise and knowledge cover insurance and reinsurance products and insurance-specific transactions, and extend to other practice areas, including corporate and finance, restructuring/insolvency and litigation.

Principal Areas of Focus

Corporate and Finance

Kramer Levin has extensive experience in corporate and financial transactions involving the insurance and reinsurance industries, including mergers, acquisitions and dispositions and related regulatory action; joint ventures; credit facilities; premium financing facilities; venture capital and strategic investments; work outs and distressed debt transactions; money management matters; and general corporate representation.  We draw on the interdisciplinary talents of attorneys in the firm’s corporate, employee benefits, intellectual property, tax, real estate and environmental departments.  Recent transactions include a series of dispositions for a major US insurance group; an international joint venture between a large multinational insurance company and a health-care provider; and an acquisition and cross-border merger of a European reinsurer.

Insurance and Reinsurance Products

Our attorneys have provided advice in connection with a variety of insurance and reinsurance products.  In particular:

• We provide advice in connection with the issuance of representation and warranty insurance policies, designed to insure against damages associated with a breach of a representation or warranty in an acquisition, acting in relation to both buy-side and sell-side policies, together with other transactional insurance products.
• The firm regularly counsels corporate clients with respect to the adequacy and suitability of directors’ and officers’ liability insurance and related coverage – in the normal course of our clients’ businesses, in connection with going public and corporate control transactions, and as part of our representation of companies and their boards in securities fraud and other proceedings that implicate such coverage.
• Our attorneys have handled numerous transactions involving financing of life insurance policies and life settlements, variable insurance policies and annuities and mutual fund products, loss portfolio transfers and reinsurance coverage.

Insurance-Related Structured Finance and Alternative Risk Transfer

The firm also advises in connection with insurance-related structured finance transactions and alternative risk transfer (involving derivative structures, financial risk guaranty insurance, and finite risk insurance and reinsurance).

Insurance Industry Restructuring and Insolvency

We have acted in the representation of distressed insurance entities, regulators, creditors and other constituencies in the insurance company rehabilitation and liquidation processes, including acquisitions and dispositions of insurers and blocks of business; given advice to bondholders and bank creditors; and developed innovative insurance structures permitting release of assets locked up in commercial reorganization and liquidation proceedings.

Insurance Litigation

Our insurance litigation  practice covers a wide spectrum of litigation issues of importance to insurance companies and their insureds as well as reinsurance companies, including claims and coverage litigation and white-collar criminal matters.  We act as coverage counsel for two major insurance carriers, for whom we also litigate complex coverage disputes.  Additionally, we act as defense counsel for insureds of major carriers on complex directors’ and officers’ liability, professional liability, errors and omissions, and product liability matters.  In addition, we act on behalf of our clients in pursuing claims under fidelity bonds and related insurance, particularly where the matters are complex or involve coverage issues, and we litigate managed health care disputes, claims of policy sales malpractice, claims relating to investment activities of insurance companies, and claims arising under disability, life insurance and annuity policies.