EXCESS,
SURPLUS LINES AND REINSURANCE
(ESLR)
Committee News
| A Word From the Chair
| Nothing But Net | Upcoming Events
|
Spring 2000
VIEW FROM THE CHAIR
View From the ESLR Chair
By:H. Wesley Sunu, Tribler Orpett & Crone, Chicago,
Illinois
The July ABA Annual Meeting in New York and London is just
around the corner. If you cannot make it to London, you should set aside time to attend
the New York half of the meeting as our committee is, once again, putting on great CLE
programs in a great city. While the TIPS programs start on Friday, July 7, 2000, you
should plan on staying over the weekend as the ESLR business meeting and programs are
scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, July 10 and 11, 2000. Our committee will also have its
annual committee dinner on Sunday night. (We should be able to find a restaurant in New
York.) Details of the ESLR dinner will be e-mailed to everyone on the ESLR list serve and
posted on the web page. Also at the Annual Meeting in New York, Michael Knoerzer
will become Chair of the committee and Linda Lasley will be Chair-elect. This gives
our committee coast to coast coverage as Michael practices in New York and Linda in
California.
ESLR Annual Meeting Programs
The ESLR Committee has always put on cutting
edge and informative programs. Last year we focused on E-Commerce in the insurance
Industry. This year, we are presenting a mock litigation of an E-Commerce claim, which
will also highlight the implications of the Aglobal economy@ in these lawsuits. This mock
trial will not be in a hotel, but will be held in a Southern District Court of New York
courtroom presided by Judge Shira Scheindlin, a Federal Court judge. Docket your calendars
for July 11, 2000, at 9:30 am. Don't forget to bring your jury card as you will also be
eligible to sit on the jury for this trial.
But that's not all! The global economy brings
with it global jurisdictional issues. A London party has moved to have its part of the
E-Commerce dispute heard in a London court. Everyone is warned that they should plan on
making travel arrangements to London to see the second part of the E-Commerce lawsuit at
the House of Lords. Not only can you see a New York Federal District Court judge in action
but you will also have a chance to see and compare how the proceedings are held in a
London court. Docket your London House of Lords appearance for Wednesday, July 19, 2000.
Take advantage of the ABA New York-London meeting because this unique comparative
litigation program only comes around with the ABA every 25 years.
The other ESLR sponsored program focuses on
the reported One Billion Dollars in losses associated with the Unicover workers
compensation program. Immediately following our business meeting on Monday morning, July
10, 2000, our committee is co-sponsoring an program on Reinsurance Disputes in the Life
and Health Industry. There are two parts to this programs. The first part will focus on
the role and issues involving the use of managing general underwriters(MGU) in the area of
workers compensation coverage. You might have seen reports in the insurance industry
publications about the Unicover program which has reportedly produced a book of horrendous
workers compensation losses. Through a MGU, a life insurance company can become a workers
compensation carrier, and many have taken on that role as either a fronting company or a
reinsurer on this line of business. This program will give you the inside look at the
current issues in this area.
If a billion dollars in workers compensation
losses are expected, the second panel might give us a peek at the future as it will be
addressing issues relating to insolvencies of life and health insurance companies. Are
HMO's and other Managed Care Plans running well and well run? Some are and probably some
are not. There are reports that the aging Baby Boomers are requiring more medical
treatments and that these type of health plans may be paying out more in claims than they
are collecting in premiums. The second panel will address the roles of the receiver, the
guaranty associations and the reinsurer in life or health insurance insolvencies.
Report On Multi-Disciplinary Practice
The responses that I received from our
committee on multi-disciplinary practice(MDP), that is whether accounting firms and law
firms can practice together and split fees, was that it is already happening in the areas
of tax, mergers and acquisitions and restructuring. Several of you raised the issue of the
brain drain, bright lawyers leaving law firms for accounting firms or dot.coms. Several
in-house attorneys said it is happening already and were in favor of it. One attorney
asked what we should be doing to prepare for the competition that accounting firms may now
pose on law firms.
While I reported the comments of the ESLR
membership at the ABA Dallas Mid-Year meeting, the discussion at the TIPS general
committee meeting was that most, if not all of the committees, had not received much
response at all from their membership on this issue. However, the committee chairs,
speaking for themselves in their areas of practice, generally opposed MDPs. There are
reports that the merging of the two professions is already taking place. The ABA has
tabled its recommendations for further input from its members. If you have specific
concerns, insights or issues relating to MDP, please contact me as TIPS wants to voice
your concerns to the ABA before it is too late.
Other Committee News
David Anderson has done a fabulous job
with the ESLR newsletter. He also did a great job of speaking on the insurance coverage
implications of e-commerce at the Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee's Mid-Winter
Meeting in San Diego which was co-sponsored by our committee. Michael Knoerzer and
his partner, Dean Hansell, brought in Michael Nolan, General Counsel of
Argonaut Insurance Company, to talk about the attorney client privilege for insurance and
reinsurance professionals at that seminar. It was a very thought provoking program, as we
generally take for granted that our communications are privileged. However, we all need to
understand that some communications are privileged, some are not privileged and many will
fall somewhere in between.
Larry Schiffer, our ESLR webmaster,
was once again the co-chair with Tom Orr, Claims Counsel of General Re, for the
ARIAS$U.S. Spring Conference held May 18-20, 2000 at the Ritz Carlton in Palm Beach,
Florida.
Committee Involvement
The attempt to have an ESLR mid-year business
meeting was not too successful. While ESLR tried to have a co-sponsored mid-year business
meeting with the Insurance Coverage Committee, it produced small attendance from our
committee. TIPS has recommended that all committees put on low cost and convenient
regional meetings for our members. Brown bag lunch seminars may be the answer in giving
busy attorneys practicing in our field networking opportunities and continuing education.
These type of meetings fit into people's schedules and provide less commitment to attend.
If you have an idea for one of these small regional meeting, please contact me and we can
help you come up set it up.
Also, you should have received your TIPS
Journal Annual Survey of the Law (Winter 2000 edition). Michael Fandel headed up
this project and we want to thank him for his hard work in putting together a great survey
of the law. Anyone interested in working on this year's annual survey for the TIPS
Journal, please let me know.
How can the ESLR committee better serve your
needs? Do you want more opportunities to participate in programs, network with other
attorneys and company representatives, publish articles, move up in the leadership of TIPS
or do you simply want to receive the newsletter or other communications from the committee
about your practice areas? Let me know what you want from the ESLR committee, as we are
trying to become more responsive to your needs.
New Publication Project
Our committee is looking into a publication
for Reinsurance Arbitration Procedure. There are publications on substantive reinsurance,
numerous books about insurance coverage litigation procedure, but no publication on
reinsurance arbitration procedure. That is because there are no set rules for arbitration.
The idea for this new ESLR publication is that it will give an insider's perspective and
the custom and practice procedures for smooth running reinsurance arbitrations. If you are
interested in working on this project, please contact Wes Sunu.
Back To ESLR Committee Home Page
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