Insurance Procurement and Coverage

INSURANCE PROCUREMENT AND COVERAGE

Finding the right commercial insurance product doesn’t have to be difficult. Jimerson Birr attorneys help clients in many industries to procure and assess insurance solutions that minimize operational risk. We work closely with clients and their insurance agents to design a commercial insurance program that makes business owners feel protected and secure. Our team works to evaluate and assist in procurement of commercial insurance so that our clients have peace of mind over a very important part of their business.

We’ve never had a client contact us for counsel and ask for a plan that guarantees failure. But when clients contact us with a risk management plan that doesn’t cover all assessible exposure, we are reminded just how easy it is for a business to fail. Jimerson Birr’s attorneys help clients assess current insurance policies and procure coverages that provide them with the business insurance necessary to protect their company’s assets and operations. All too often we are reminded by clients who failed to adequately plan for knowable risks that insurance is like a parachute; if you don’t have it the first time you need it, you won’t have an opportunity to need it a second time.

Procurement Counsel

Our role as insurance procurement counsel is to serve as a trusted advisor. We consult with our clients to help them understand their needs and exposures before helping them find the coverage, service and value they need from an insurance product and professional. Although keeping up with day-to-day operations takes up most of our clients’ time, we seek to impart the need for taking all necessary precautions to safeguard their business from loss. Safety and security do not happen by accident; this takes planning.

Coverage Counsel

Occasionally, our clients engage our services to weigh in on a disagreement on whether a particular claim is covered. It is incredibly frustrating for an insured to learn that, despite loyally paying premiums over the years, their coverage is denied. When disagreements between insurance companies and insureds about coverage, claim evaluation, defending or settling claims, or excess liability issues arise, we will fight to protect your interests. Jimerson Birr advises policyholders and prosecutes claims and coverage litigation in connection with a broad range of coverage lines and underlying liabilities. Our insurance coverage lawyers are skilled at finding missing policies, identifying the source and scope of loss, evaluating insurer liability, investigating claims for large losses, preparing coverage opinions based on case law interpretation, properly noticing claims, assisting in pursuit of additional insured rights under other policies, advocating the corporate policyholder’s position in settlement negotiations or contested litigation, and pursuing bad faith suits seeking contractual and extra-contractual damages. Our lawyers understand issues arising in the context of the insurer’s duty to defend, policy exclusions, additional insureds, policy deductibles, retentions, priority of coverages, and the relationship between primary and supplemental insurance policies.

Claims Counsel

Every commercial insurance policy contains a variety of provisions addressing when and how the insured’s claims are to be administered. As a practical matter, the insurance policy is a contract, represented by a policy, in which the insured individual or entity receives financial protection or reimbursement against losses from an insurance company. The policy elaborates on each party’s rights and responsibilities under the insurance contract. The policy is replete with clauses that, more likely than not, are added for the benefit of the insurer to hedge against financial risk. Not surprisingly, then, insurers usually require strict interpretation and enforcement of Draconian insurance exclusions and provisos that create unsurmountable conditions to recovery for an insured. From the insured’s perspective, much can be lost from failure to comply to the letter of the contract, the most consequential of which is forfeiture of all coverage for a loss or potential liability. Jimerson Birr’s lawyers help clients to ensure that the insurance company’s strict interpretation of claims is appropriate and legally supportable. When insurance companies wrongfully deny claims, Jimerson Birr helps clients recover the full value of their claims, including damages that greatly exceed the claim amount due to the insurance company’s bad faith handling of the claim.

We provide a complete range of insurance procurement and coverage legal services, regularly offering counsel in areas such as:

Jimerson Birr is a premier law firm with a market-leading insurance procurement and coverage practice that is tailored to the nuances of the industries we serve. Our teams have a global perspective and strong Florida roots. Our clients look to us to bring a distinctively high degree of quality, passion and creativity to resolve insurance procurement and coverage challenges effectively and cost efficiently.

We’re honored to work with some of the world’s most accomplished organizations and the leaders who drive them. We know that on any given day our clients are confronting competition, corporate advancement, risk management, process and product innovation, resource allocation, efficiency stewardship and talent oversight problems; some days all the above. When our clients place insurance procurement and coverage matters with us, they enlist sets of broad shoulders that carry their burdens for them so that they no longer feel their weight. This deep business partnership will give us both an opportunity to be at our best.

We draw on the strength of our character and talents to deliver the best of our firm to every client through true collaboration. On those occasions where our client is concerned it may have erred or is accused of being in the wrong, we help them become right. We don’t confuse effort with results, and we focus on the immutable, allied goals at all times. Partnership with Jimerson Birr on insurance procurement and coverage matters means that you are not looking in any direction but ahead.