Overview
Our experienced team of insurance lawyers represents a substantial number of major national insurers in many different contexts, including defending against class actions, installment fees and modal premium litigation, defending against bad faith claims arising from claim handling and coverage decisions, providing coverage opinions, and lobbying, among other areas. Recently, Modrall Sperling insurance litigators defeated a putative class action through meticulous analysis of third-party automobile bodily injury claims files, to demonstrate that although the number of such claim files was large, the number of such files that would be included in the class did not meet the class action numerosity requirements.
Attorneys
Experience
We have recently defended insurers, agents and adjusters and other employees against a variety of challenges to insurer claim handling practices in the areas of personal and commercial automobile casualty as well as homeowner's policies, creating law in such areas as the availability of stacking of uninsured motorists coverage under commercial automobile policies, and the need to give full faith and credit to a sister state's judgment even when it may be contrary to New Mexico public policy. Our lawyers routinely represent such insurers in bad faith litigation filed throughout the state that challenges both claim handling and coverage decisions. We represent excess insurers and surplus lines carriers, and recently defended a challenge to an insurer's refusal to provide general liability coverage for a contractor's failure to deliver promised broadband services to a New Mexico county government. We also have represented insurers facing challenges to environmental and intellectual property claims handling and coverage decisions, as well as professional liability coverage determinations.
Our lawyers representing insurers are very familiar with insurer claim handling practices and are routinely involved in claim file audits and other quality assurance programs. Recently, we successfully rebuffed attempts to obtain confidential insurer business records without entry of a protective order, significantly expanding the protections available for such documents. See Pincheira v. Allstate Ins. Co., a case decided by the New Mexico Supreme Court.