At Barton, we provide counseling with respect to multiple types of insurance coverage, including:
• General Liability
• Cyber
• Representations & Warranties
• Directors & Officers
• Errors and Omissions
• Environmental
• Business Interruption
• Property
• Employment Liability
The first step for most companies is coverage assessment, in which counsel will evaluate which types of insurance your company needs, depending on your business type and industry. The right insurance policies can help to insure your company against claims by employees, certain types of crime, products liability, data breaches, environmental hazards, business interruption, and claims against officers and board members, among other things.
Once an insurance application has been submitted and a policy has been offered, an experienced attorney can conduct a policy review. Many insurance policies can have provisions that reduce the scope of available coverage. These can include sub-limits, high deductibles or “self-insured retentions,” exclusions, or narrow definitions of events that will trigger coverage or types of claims covered. Insurance policies can be dense, complicated documents and should be reviewed by a legal advisor who can assist in identifying the risks posed by any coverage gaps, along with handling any subsequent negotiations to close these gaps, as well as any contract drafting related to the policy.
Coverage is dependent both on actual insurance policy language as well as the interpretation of that language which, in the United States, is typically under the state law applicable to that insurance policy (different states do not necessarily interpret identical insurance policy language the same way). In certain instances, there may be losses that go beyond the direct claim, such as business interruption.
If your business suffers a loss and seeks to submit a claim to an insurance carrier, our attorneys can provide counsel in regard to calculating and obtaining documentation of the loss with the goal of avoiding a disputed claim. In a scenario where a coverage dispute does occur and results in litigation (e.g., delayed payment, claim denial, bad faith claims, etc.), our team has the dispute resolution experience necessary to assist our clients in getting the most out of their insurance policies.
