Newsletter RSS

Mealey's Reinsurance

  • July 01, 2025

    California Appellate Court Lets Rehab Plan For Workers’ Comp Insurer Stand

    SAN FRANCISCO — In an unpublished opinion, the First District California Court of Appeal upheld a nonconsensual rehabilitation plan for a workers’ compensation insurance carrier; the plan was approved as part of conservation proceedings brought by California’s insurance regulator and includes options to resolve dozens of reinsurance participation agreement (RPA) lawsuits.

  • July 01, 2025

    Oral Argument Set In Federal Circuit For ACA Reinsurance Takings Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Oral argument is scheduled for July 9 in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an appeal by two self-insured group health plan trusts challenging a U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruling that found they failed to establish a property appropriation by the federal government in a lawsuit over the Transitional Reinsurance Program (TRP) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).

  • June 30, 2025

    Reinsurer, General Agent Stipulate Dismissal; Breach Of Contract Suit Terminated

    FORT WORTH, Texas — A breach of contract suit concerning an underlying multimillion-dollar personal injury judgment involving a reinsurer and a general agent was dismissed after the parties filed a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice; in a text-only docket entry filed on the same day, a Texas federal court declared the litigation terminated.

  • June 30, 2025

    Oral Argument Set In 6th Circuit Appeal Of Collateral Estoppel Appeal

    CINCINNATI — Oral argument is scheduled for July 30 in an insurer’s appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concerning a ruling issued in a Michigan federal court that collateral estoppel applies to defense cost expenses resolved in a prior arbitration award as part of a dispute relating to asbestos lawsuits.

  • June 27, 2025

    California Judge Denies Insured’s Motion For Summary Adjudication As To UCL Claim

    LOS ANGELES — A California judge granted an insured’s motion for summary adjudication as to his declaratory relief claim in a lawsuit alleging that the California Fair Plan Association (CFP) issued property insurance policies with fire coverage that is unlawfully restrictive as to smoke damage claims but denied the insured’s motion as to his unfair competition law (UCL) claim, finding that he failed to satisfy his burden to establish standing to bring the UCL claim.

  • June 27, 2025

    Reinsurance Schemer Sentenced To Time Served, Probation And $100 Assessment

    MIAMI — After pleading guilty in April to conspiracy to commit money laundering in a case the U.S. government filed over a plot to bribe Ecuadorian officials for reinsurance business, the general manager of two companies that acted as intermediaries for reinsurance companies was sentenced by a Florida federal court to time served, three years of supervised release and a $100 assessment.

  • June 26, 2025

    Sub-Broker Wins Dismissal From Insureds’ Negligence Suit Over Warehouse Losses

    NEW YORK — In a one-paragraph June 25 order stating that the reasons were “set forth on the record today,” a New York federal judge dismissed a defendant said it “acted as a sub-broker” from a suit seeking $41 million in a dispute involving reinsurance and a warehouse in Afghanistan.

  • June 25, 2025

    Claiming APA Violation, Captive Insurance Entities File Suit To Vacate IRS Rule

    HOUSTON — A plastics manufacturer, a captive insurer and a microcaptive manager filed a complaint in a federal court in Texas challenging under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)  an Internal Revenue Service final rule that mandates new reporting requirements on small captive insurers, seeking to have the regulation set aside as unlawful, arbitrary and capricious and an overreach of statutory authority.

  • June 24, 2025

    Declaration Is Struck, For Now, In Case Challenging Pension Risk Transfers

    NEW YORK — Largely granting an unopposed motion, a New York federal judge struck a declaration that retirees who filed a putative class action challenging pension risk transfers (PRTs) to Prudential Insurance Company of America (PICA) and RGA Reinsurance Co. (RGA) attached to and referenced in their amended complaint but denied a request to order alterations to the operative complaint.

  • June 24, 2025

    Financer Denied Intervention In Reinsurance Row For Lack Of Protectable Interest

    CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge denied a nonparty vehicle service contract financer’s motion to intervene in a reinsurance dispute between an insurer and reinsurer, finding that the financer lacked a “legally protectable interest to intervene as of right” and was not a necessary party to the litigation that it ultimately sought to dismiss.

  • June 23, 2025

    Lower Court Misinterpreted Reinsurance Contract, Insurer Tells 5th Circuit

    NEW ORLEANS — Contending that a district court misinterpreted three provisions of a 2017 reinsurance authorization agreement and erroneously granted a reinsurance broker’s motion to dismiss, a homeowners insurer filed an appellate brief in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals challenging the dismissal of its breach of contract claim stemming from the collapse of Vesttoo Ltd.

  • June 20, 2025

    New York Judge Tosses Reinsurers RICO ‘Fake Accident’ Suit Against Law Firm, Agent

    BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A New York federal judge on June 19 dismissed without prejudice a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit against a law firm and its agent accused of a “scheme” to defraud a reinsurer and a related party by staging construction-related workers’ compensation accidents, finding that the claims fail for lack of pleading “direct injuries.”

  • June 18, 2025

    Upon Reconsideration, Dismissal Motion Again Denied In Reinsurance Dispute

    CHICAGO — After granting reconsideration, an Illinois federal judge again denied an insurer’s motion for dismissal of its reinsurer’s breach of contract claim, ruling that the contested definition of what constitutes a reinsurance policy under the disputed contract creates a question of fact that cannot be resolved on a motion to dismiss and that contradictory economic reports establish another factual dispute.

  • June 18, 2025

    Plaintiff Cites N.Y. Federal Ruling In Discovery Row Involving Reinsurance Info

    STATESVILLE, N.C. — The plaintiff in a bad faith suit over an excess liability insurer’s alleged duty to indemnify has filed a notice of supplemental authority in which it directs the attention of a North Carolina federal court to a New York federal court ruling that it says “held that reserve and reinsurance information is discoverable in an insurance coverage action.”

  • June 18, 2025

    Stay Granted, Trial Vacated In Captive Insurance Dispute After Settlement Offer

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge stayed litigation and vacated a forthcoming trial date to allow time for the United States to respond to and prepare acceptance of a written offer submitted by the executive of a purported captive insurance company that the United States says would resolve all claims and counterclaims brought forth in the litigation. 

  • June 18, 2025

    English Justice Rules That Aircraft Losses Fall Under War Risk Coverage

    LONDON — In a 230-page ruling pertaining to six cases filed over aircraft and engine leases affected by the legal and economic fallout of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, an English justice concluded in part that there were losses worth billions of dollars and that war risk (WR) rather than hull all risks (AR) coverage should apply.

  • June 18, 2025

    U.S. Answers In Captive Insurance Deduction Row After Dismissal Motion Denied

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States filed an answer to a federal tax refund complaint after a federal judge denied its motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, finding the administrative record unclear as to whether the Internal Revenue Service received an amended tax return underlying a couple’s claim stemming from disallowed deductions for insurance premiums paid to their captive insurance company.

  • June 13, 2025

    Federal Judge Rules On 8 Motions In Coverage Row Involving Insolvent Insurer

    OMAHA, Neb. — A Nebraska federal judge ruled that adherence to New York law precludes a reinsurer’s breach of warranty defense in National Indemnity Co.’s (NICO) suit to enforce its reinsurers’ obligations for incurred liabilities related to asbestos exposure; the judge also resolved seven additional motions pertaining to claims for novation and various coverage disputes, among others.

  • June 13, 2025

    Magistrate Partly Grants Insured’s Motion To Compel In Coronavirus Coverage Suit

    NEW YORK — A federal magistrate judge in New York granted in part and denied in part a holding company for the U.S. interests in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group’s motion to compel its “all risk” insurers to produce certain documents they have withheld as privileged in a coronavirus coverage dispute, directing the insurers to produce communications with their reinsurers and produce documents containing reserve information unless there is another viable ground for withholding.

  • June 12, 2025

    Receiver Of Liquidated Reinsurer Seeks Settlement With Long-Serving TPA

    WILMINGTON, Del. — The receiver for the liquidation of life and health reinsurer Scottish Re (U.S.) Inc. (SRUS) asked the Delaware Chancery Court to approve a settlement resolving a dispute with its third-party administrator (TPA), which had sought to terminate its service agreement with SRUS.

  • June 11, 2025

    Reinsurer Loses Bid To Dismiss Counterclaims In Case Arising From Vesttoo Collapse

    BOSTON — Counterclaims against a commercial reinsurer survived dismissal in litigation connected to the collapse of Vesttoo Ltd., with a Massachusetts state court judge ruling in part that pay-as-paid provisions “protected only the primary insurers, and the ‘follow form’ provision in the Reinsurance Certificates did not rewrite them to protect [the reinsurer] as well.”

  • June 11, 2025

    Ferrosilicon Producer Seeks Reconsideration On Discovery Limits In Cleanup Row

    PADUCAH, Ky. — A ferrosilicon producer seeks reconsideration of a Kentucky federal magistrate judge’s ruling limiting the scope of the producer’s issued deposition topics, claiming that the court erred in failing to acknowledge a reinsurer as a proper party in the litigation and misinterpreted its role in a reinsurance contract in a dispute over pollution-related cleanup costs.

  • June 06, 2025

    Federal Judge: District Court Does Not Have Jurisdiction To Enforce Remand Order

    BAY CITY, Mich. — A motion to enforce a remand order filed by a group of farmers was denied in a Michigan federal court in a crop insurance dispute involving a dry-bean revenue endorsement (DBRE), after the judge ruled that the court did not retain jurisdiction when the litigation was remanded and said that the farmers must file a new case under Administrative Procedures Act (APA) to continue proceedings.

  • June 05, 2025

    7th Circuit Lacks Jurisdiction, Tosses Appeal In Preclusion Dispute

    CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed an interlocutory appeal brought by the successor to a dissolved coal mining company in a decades-long dispute over whether mine subsidence claims are barred by claim and issue preclusion, holding that it lacked jurisdiction to review a district court’s partial dismissal of claims seeking to bar future litigation by a reinsurer because the lower court’s order neither definitively denied injunctive relief nor addressed claims materially distinct from those still pending.

  • June 05, 2025

    Life Insurance Premiums Not Debt In Rehabilitation Row, Connecticut Judge Says

    WATERBURY, Conn. — Following oral arguments, a Connecticut judge clarified the interpretation of debt under the Connecticut Insurers Rehabilitation and Liquidation Act (CIRLA), opining that the argument advanced by three asset managers — that premiums owed on their life insurance policies issued by PHL Variable Insurance Co., currently in rehabilitation, constitutes debt — conflicts with binding precedent established by a long-standing ruling.