Every year after Labor Day, I take a step back to survey the most important current trends and developments in the world of Directors’ and Officers’ liability and insurance. This year’s review is set out below. As the following discussion shows, this is a particularly interesting time in the world of D&O.Continue Reading What to Watch Now in the World of D&O
The directors’ and officers’ liability environment is always changing, but 2022 was a particularly eventful year, with important consequences for the D&O insurance marketplace. The past year’s many developments also have significant implications for what may lie ahead in 2023 – and possibly for years to come. I have set out below the Top Ten D&O Stories of 2022, with a focus on future implications. Please note that on Thursday, January 12, 2023 at 11:00 AM EST, my colleagues Marissa Streckfus, Chris Bertola, and I will be conducting a free, hour-long webinar in which we will discuss The Top Ten D&O Stories of 2022. Registration for the webinar can be found here. I hope you will please join us for the webinar.Continue Reading The Top Ten D&O Stories of 2022
Every year after Labor Day, I take a step back to survey the most important current trends and developments in the world of Directors’ and Officers’ liability and insurance. This year’s review is set out below. As the following discussion shows, this is a particularly eventful time in the world of D&O.
Continue Reading What to Watch Now in the World of D&O
Readers of this blog are well aware that the D&O insurance in the U.S. and the U.K. has been in a hard market since late 2018. The hard market has apparently affected D&O insurance conditions in other regions as well. According to a May 5, 2021 article on the NewDawnRisk website entitled “Where Next for D&O in the Middle East?” (here), written by Nicky Stokes, Head of Management Liability and Financial Institutions at NewDawnRisk, the current hard market conditions have also had an impact in the Middle East region as well. As a result of overall conditions in the global insurance market and a changing liability exposure environment, Middle Eastern D&O insurance buyers are also facing increased pricing, reduced insurer capacity, and an uncertain insurance landscape.
Continue Reading Changing Market for D&O in the Middle East
On Tuesday, May 18, 2021, I will be participating as a panelist in a webinar sponsored by the PLUS Singapore Chapter entitled “State of the Market for D&O: The View from Across the Globe.” This free, 90-minute session will take place at 9 am Singapore time/ Monday May 17, 2021 at 9 pm EDT. The
In the following guest post, Francis Kean provides us with ten reasons to be cheerful notwithstanding the current D&O insurance market. Francis is a Partner, Financial Lines, at McGill and Partners. A version of this article previously was published Insurance Day. I would like to thank Francis for allowing me to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Francis’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: The State of the D&O Market: 10 Reasons to Be Cheerful
In the following guest, Paul Ferrillo takes a look at the current deteriorating cyber insurance claims environment and offers his views on the likely impact of the claims developments on the market for cyber insurance in 2021. Paul is a partner in the McDermott, Will & Emery law firm. My thanks to Paul for allowing me to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest posts from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Paul’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Be Prepared: Costly Cyber Claims Could Lead to Higher Premiums in 2021
Every year after Labor Day, I take a step back and survey the most important current trends and developments in the world of Directors’ and Officers’ liability and insurance. This year’s review is set out below. As the following discussion shows, this is a particularly eventful time in the world of D&O.
Continue Reading What to Watch Now in the World of D&O
Having observed and commented on the D&O insurance industry for many years, I am accustomed to periodic proclamations from non-industry-based observers about how the D&O insurance industry ought to work, based on various social, behavioral, or economic notions. These periodic declarations usually start with a series of vexed observations that the D&O industry does or does not do things that economic or behavioral models suggest the industry should or should not do, and then the declarations move on to a series of proposed prescriptions that would mandate how the D&O insurance business ought to work, for the supposed greater good of all.
The latest example of this literary genre is the academic paper “Changing the Guard: Improving Corporate Governance with D&O Insurer Rotations” written by UCLA Law Professor Andrew Verstein. Based on his construct of the way D&O insurance business works and his belief that D&O insurance business ought to work differently, Professor Verstein proposes that corporations ought to be forced to rotate D&O insurers every five years. I discuss my concerns with Professor Verstein’s proposal below. Professor Verstein’s paper can be found here. His August 19, 2020 summary of the paper on the CLS Blue Sky Blog can be found here.
Continue Reading Mandating D&O Insurer Rotation? A Critique
As part of a continuing series, I have been participating in sessions that the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS) has organized addressing the potential D&O liability and insurance issues arising out of the COVID-19 outbreak. I have been joined in these recorded sessions by my good friends Carl Metzger of the Goodwin Procter law firm