6THE BRIEF ❭ Win ter 2024
Prole
By Agnes A. Wilewicz
The Excess, Surplus Lines, and Reinsurance Committee
(ESLR) of the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section
(TIPS) serves members in three important constituen-
cies: insurance coverage practitioners handling a wide variety
of matters under umbrella and excess insurance policies,
insurance coverage and regulatory practitioners handling
matters in the surplus lines insurance market, and reinsurance
practitioners who deal with transactional and dispute-related
reinsurance matters. Our focus in these areas complements the
work of several other TIPS committees, including Insurance
Coverage Litigation (ICLC), Insurance Regulation, Dispute
Resolution, and Business Litigation, among others. Joining
ESLR will make you a part of a large national network of
professionals who practice in these areas and oer you guid-
ance on current and emerging issues from attorneys who are
experts in their elds.
Excess insurance aords coverage for loss or damage in
excess of a stated amount or claims for large amounts that are
often greater than the total primary insurance available. In the
excess insurance arena, ESLR brings together experienced
and accomplished attorneys who handle a diverse array of
coverage matters, including environmental pollution, asbestos,
toxic torts, products liability, construction defects, workplace
accidents, securities, employment issues, and catastrophes,
among others. Umbrella and excess insurance policies present
a number of coverage issues, such as how to treat self-insured
retentions or deductibles and fronting policies, allocation, pri-
ority of coverage, duty to defend or reimburse defense costs,
whether underlying insurance has been properly exhausted,
drop-down due to insolvent underlying insurance, late notice,
and rights of equitable subrogation or contribution. ESLR
focuses on insurance coverage issues that directly bear on
umbrella and excess insurance policies. For an insurance
coverage attorney, membership in ESLR oers specialized
resources and insights pertaining to complex coverage matters
aecting your clients or your employers.
Excess, Surplus Lines, and Reinsurance
Committee: Bringing Together a Wealth of Industry
Knowledge and a Breadth of Insurance Experience
Agnes A. Wilewicz is a member of Hurwitz Fine PC, where
she handles all aspects of coverage analysis and litigation in state and
federal courts. She is chair-elect of the TIPS Excess, Surplus Lines,
and Reinsurance Committee.
Surplus lines insurance, or nonadmitted insurance, is a
growing part of the insurance marketplace, oering the
exibility to write policies for risks using nonstandard terms
or pricing. Risks addressed in the surplus lines market may
be nonstandard risks that involve unusual operations or
heightened exposures or require higher limits of insurance,
for which the admitted insurance market may not have insur-
ance products, or for which product pricing is less exible
than in the surplus lines market. The surplus lines market is
often on the cutting edge, providing insurance solutions for
hard-to-place risks and specialty insurance for risks that may
otherwise not be insured but for the existence of surplus
lines insurance policies. ESLR brings together surplus lines
and insurance regulation professionals who follow important
regulatory developments at the state and national levels.
Knowledge of surplus lines issues is invaluable to insurance
coverage attorneys who encounter insurance policies placed
in the surplus lines market.
Reinsurance is a form of risk transfer where an insurer
(the ceding insurer) transfers some or all of a risk under a
policy (facultative reinsurance) or a group of policies (treaty
reinsurance) to another insurer (the reinsurer). Reinsurance
can be assumptive reinsurance, by which the reinsurer steps
into the shoes of the ceding insurer under the policy and
handles and pays claims presented under the policy. Or,
reinsurance may be indemnity reinsurance, under which the
reinsurer agrees to indemnify or reimburse the ceding insurer
for some or all of the costs it incurs and pays. ESLR provides
a community for reinsurance practitioners who are involved
in transactional reinsurance, helping to set up reinsurance
solutions, or attorneys who represent ceding insurers or rein-
surers in reinsurance disputes in arbitration or litigation.
ESLR sponsors and cosponsors CLE and lunch-and-learn
programs throughout the year. In the past, we cosponsored
a program featuring keynote speaker Kenneth Feinberg that
addressed claim resolution for matters such as the Boston
bombing attack. ESLR previously also cosponsored a program
at the ABA’s London Magna Carta program titled “Adapting
to an Ever-Changing and Risky World of Tort Liability” that
oered a stellar panel of speakers from the insurance industry
and academia, including the current general counsel of
Lloyd’s of London. The committee also cosponsors insurance
PUBLISHED IN THE BRIEF, VOLUME 53, NUMBER 2, WINTER 2024. © 2024 BY THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS INFORMATION OR ANY PORTION THEREOF MAY
NOT BE COPIED OR DISSEMINATED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS OR STORED IN AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE OR RETRIEVAL SYSTEM WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION.
PUBLISHED IN THE BRIEF, VOLUME 53, NUMBER 2, WINTER 2024. © 2024 BY THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS INFORMATION OR ANY PORTION THEREOF MAY
NOT BE COPIED OR DISSEMINATED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS OR STORED IN AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE OR RETRIEVAL SYSTEM WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION.
