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Insurance & Reinsurance

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Practice Group Leader

Patrick M. Tomovic

Attorneys

Alba Alessandro

Lisa A. Bauer

Margaret M. Cmielewski

Ryan K. Cummings

Robert J. Fluskey, Jr.

Ryan J. Lucinski

Jonathan A. Mugel

Brent J. Nowicki

Michael C. O'Neill

Kevin D. Szczepanski

James M. Bauer

William A. Ciszewski III

Paralegals

Erin R. Pawlak

Hodgson Russ’s insurance-coverage practice began in the 1920s under the leadership of Hugh McMaster Russ, an eminent Western New York trial lawyer. Today Hodgson Russ provides a full range of coverage counseling, litigation, and drafting services in matters across the nation.

Our multidisciplinary insurance-coverage team provides a wide array of services to our insurer clients, including litigating coverage actions in New York and across the country, reviewing claims to evaluate liability and exposure, analyzing coverage issues to assist in resolving claims, and providing proactive and strategic recommendations. As a full-service law firm practicing in virtually every area of U.S. business law, our Insurance & Reinsurance Practice Group draws on our firm’s depth and broad base of experience.

We have extensive experience analyzing and litigating in the following lines:

• Directors and officers liability
• Environmental liability
• Errors and omissions
• Fiduciary liability
• General liability
• Health care coverage
• Professional liability

Within these lines, our team devises creative, sound solutions in disputes involving:

• Advertising and personal injury
• Accounting malpractice
• Architectural malpractice
• Asbestos
• Bad-faith and extra-contractual damages
• Carbon monoxide
• Chemical and petroleum contamination
• Construction defects
• Employee-benefits liability
• Employment practices
• Engineering malpractice
• Excess- and umbrella-insurance issues
• Guaranty-fund issues
• Hazardous waste
• Lead paint
• Leaking underground storage tanks
• Legal malpractice
• Long-tail exposure
• Media and entertainment
• Mold
• Product defects
• Rescission
• Securities class and derivative actions
• Sexual-molestation claims

When litigation is necessary, we excel in shaping cases for favorable disposition—principally through motions for summary judgment, mediation, and other cost-effective means. We have secured summary judgments in major coverage litigations across the country.

In cases where summary judgment is inappropriate, we are ready to try our coverage cases—and our adversaries know it. Our attorneys have played leading roles in complex, high-profile insurance-coverage cases across the nation.

Recognizing that insurance disputes often involve companies with which our clients have ongoing business relationships, we always aim to provide representation that is optimally effective without adversely affecting the relationships our clients have with their business partners. We are also sensitive to public-relations issues and are proficient in helping to preserve and protect our clients’ public images.

Outside the adversarial context, we work side by side with claims and underwriting professionals to draft policy forms and endorsements with a view toward clarity, market penetration, and likely judicial interpretations. We recognize that a business solution is often the best result for the client and regularly counsel clients on avoiding litigation by developing strategic positions and negotiating aggressively in the early stages of a dispute.