Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation

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Marshall Dennehey's Insurance Coverage/Bad Faith Litigation Practice Group provides full-service insurance litigation solutions for national and global insurance carriers.  Far beyond coverage and bad faith litigation counsel, our Insurance Services practice group has developed a full suite of innovative services designed to meet the needs of our insurance carrier clients.  

From Florida to New York, we use creative strategies to effectively control exposure, avoid litigation and transfer risk, while protecting our clients' brands and industry position. Our legal services include counsel and defense of issues arising from commercial, personal, and specialty property and casualty policies, professional liability policies, health/life policies and workers' compensation policies. 

The Insurance Services Practice Group is led by Jim Cole, as the northeast head, and Michael Packer, shareholder in our Fort Lauderdale office, overseeing the south. While the group’s 30+ attorneys provide continuity in legal services across the board, Mike and the southeast team have a keen understanding of the unique coverage issues inherent to the state of Florida. Supported by a network of outstanding associates, paralegals and support staff, we are adept at helping clients navigate all aspects of the most complex coverage disputes, first-party property and automobile litigation.

We have successfully represented and defended insurance companies in first-party and bad faith litigation in both state and Federal courts. We are experienced in issues concerning institutional discovery, corporate designee/apex/employee depositions and the tactics utilized by plaintiffs to leverage settlements. By providing strategic advice both before and during litigation, we assist clients in analyzing available coverage and minimizing future risk. When it is in the client's best interests to proceed to trial, our experienced trial attorneys are prepared to rigorously defend the most complex insurance coverage and bad faith cases.

Our services include:

  • Coverage Consultation
  • Coordinating Counsel Services
  • CAT Operation Coverage Strategies
  • First-Party Property Coverage/Litigation Services
  • First-Party Automobile Coverage/Litigation Services
  • SIU/Fraud Coverage/Investigation/Litigation Services
  • Indemnification Risk Transfer Strategies
  • Bad Faith Strategic Evaluation
  • Bad Faith Litigation
  • Policy Language Review
  • Administrative/Insurance Department Representation and Strategies
  • Claims Practices Consultation and Services
  • Institutional Discovery Consultation and Services
  • Development of Guidelines and Best Claims Practices Strategies
  • Training and Educational Development from commercial, personal and specialty property and casualty policies, professional liability policies, health/life policies and workers' compensation policies

The Insurance Services Practice Group serves clients from our 19 offices located throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Florida, Ohio and Connecticut, and in neighboring jurisdictions in Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky. 

Cole_Jim
James H. Cole, Co-chair
Packer_Michael
Michael A. Packer, Co-chair

Affidavits in support of motions for summary judgment must be based on personal knowledge and provide underlying facts.

Fort Lauderdale
Property Litigation
Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation
In this case, an action for declaratory relief to find the insured committed certain material misrepresentations in its insurance application, the Circuit Court struck the insurance company’s underwriter’s affidavit and granted the insured’s motio Legal Update for Florida Coverage & Property Litigation – August 2024 is prepared by Marshall Dennehey to provide information on recent legal deve
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Because a party cannot create causes of action not set forth in Florida Rules of Court, motion to compel appraisal denied because no Florida court has jurisdiction over petition to select an appraiser and policy cannot confer that jurisdiction.

Orlando
Property Litigation
Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation
On March 7, 2024, the Eleventh Circuit Court in Miami-Dade County, Florida, rendered a decision regarding a defendant insurer’s motion to compel appraisal. Legal Update for Florida Coverage & Property Litigation – August 2024 is prepared by Marshall Dennehey to provide information on recent legal deve
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Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal holds that a response to a Civil Remedy Notice must raise specific deficiencies or those arguments are waived.

Fort Lauderdale
Property Litigation
Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation
The Fourth District Court of Appeal agreed with Bailey, the homeowner, that People’s Trust Insurance Company waived the right to contest the validity of the Civil Remedy Notice of Insurer Violations (CRN) in the pending bad faith action because it Legal Update for Florida Coverage & Property Litigation – August 2024 is prepared by Marshall Dennehey to provide information on recent legal deve
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Florida’s statutory scheme for medical care through PIP allows 80% reimbursement of charges but limited by the statutory maximum benefit amount if the insurer had that provision in its policy.

Fort Lauderdale
Property Litigation
Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation
Personal Injury Protection (PIP) Litigation
This matter was on appeal from the Circuit Court for Volusia County. Legal Update for Florida Coverage & Property Litigation – August 2024 is prepared by Marshall Dennehey to provide information on recent legal deve
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Fourth District Court of Appeal recedes from prior case law and finds a motion or request for trial de novo must be made within 20 days of an adverse arbitration decision, or trial is waived.

Fort Lauderdale
Property Litigation
Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation
The plaintiff filed suit against several physicians and two hospitals, including Lawnwood Medical Center, Inc., for medical negligence after a family member’s death during a hospitalization. Legal Update for Florida Coverage & Property Litigation – August 2024 is prepared by Marshall Dennehey to provide information on recent legal deve
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Amicus Curiae Brief on Behalf of PDI and PADC

Appellate Advocacy & Post-Trial Practice
Automobile Liability
Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation

Marshall Dennehey’s appellate attorneys filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the Pennsylvania Defense Institute and Pennsylvania Association of Defense Counsel in a case pending in the Pennsylvania Superior Court that involved interpretation of a “regular use” exclusion that commonly appears in underinsured motorist coverage in automobile policies. The Superior Court enforced the exclusion, as PDI and PADC had requested. The plaintiff regularly used a company vehicle for his daily work. But one or two days before the accident, the specific vehicle he had been driving was taken

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Defense verdict for insurance carrier in first party property, breach of contract dispute in the Circuit Court of Palm Beach County.

Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation

A water heater leak in a garage caused direct physical damage to the property, and our client paid the plaintiffs $956.95 for damages sustained to the garage, after applying the $1,000 policy deductible. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendant breached the contract of insurance by failing to fully indemnify them for all the property damage caused by the water leak.

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Summary judgment for insurance broker and two Lloyds syndicates.

Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation

We obtained a ruling granting summary judgment in favor of an insurance broker and two Lloyds syndicates in a case pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. ​The case involved a claim arising from a fall from a tree stand at a hunting camp.

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Court Finds Plaintiff Not Entitled to UIM Coverage.

Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation

We obtained summary judgment in favor of our insurance company client. The plaintiff sought UIM coverage from our client as a resident relative of the client’s named insured. The plaintiff was a named insured on another policy which provided UM/UIM coverage. The court granted our motion for summary judgment based upon an exclusion in the client’s policy that excluded UIM coverage for any family member if that family member is a named insured on another policy providing UM/UIM motorists coverage.

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Summary Judgment for Large Insurance Carrier in a Breach of Contract Case.

Insurance Services – Coverage & Bad Faith Litigation

The parties had filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The issue for the court was whether the carrier had breached the terms of the policy when it denied the plaintiff’s first-party benefits claim relating to medical bills for PTSD allegedly caused by the underlying accident.

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