Insurance Practice

Our insurance lawyers provide businesses and individuals with coverage litigation and consulting services in disputes involving their insurance companies. We represent policyholders in all phases of the insurance process.

Click here to listen to Attorney Greg Schwartz speak about the Firms Insurance Practice.

Coverage Issues.
Schwartz Kelly LLC's insurance lawyers provide advice on complex insurance issues such as:

Timely notice of claim and tender of defense
Duty to defend and right to control defense
Self-insured retentions, gaps in coverage and overlapping coverage
Bad faith claims and claims for extra-contractual damages
Insurability of punitive, multiplied and statutory damages
"Trigger" of coverage and "allocation of damages" issues in long-tail tort cases
Coverage for "property damage" claims and the effect of business risk exclusions

Liability Insurance.
Our Firm handles disputes arising under the full spectrum of liability insurance policies, including:

Commercial general liability insurance for claims related to asbestos, products liability, environmental, premises and hostile fire liability
Construction insurance
Environmental coverage
Errors and omissions policies (including professional liability policies for attorneys, physicians, accountants, architects, engineers, realtors and ERISA fiduciaries)
Directors and officers' liability policies
Employment practice liability policies
Specialty lines excess and umbrella policies.

Property Losses.
We represent policyholders in disputes with their insurance companies for losses to their property, including:

Fire
Wind
Flood
Hail
Theft
Employee Dishonesty
Business Interruption
Compilation and analysis of claim data and coordination (where appropriate) with public adjusters

Employee Benefits (ERISA).
We handle claims for health benefits on behalf of policyholders, including:

Health insurance claims
Life insurance claims
Disability claims

From Litigation Prevention To Appeals.
The firm's coverage attorneys advise and assist clients at every stage of insurance-related transactions and litigation. For example, our attorneys are involved in:

Negotiating and drafting claim service agreements and policy endorsements
Evaluating and drafting insurance and indemnity provisions in corporate transactional documents
Presenting claims and drafting tender and bad faith letters to insurance companies
Supervising and monitoring lawsuits that present potential excess or uninsured exposures
Representing insurance policyholders in arbitrations, appraisals, coverage suits, and appeals.

Representative Matters

Insulation Contractor, Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex County - July 2005.
We represented the insurance policyholder in a lawsuit brought by its insurance company for asbestos-related losses. The insurance company sought to rescind the insurance policy based on alleged misrepresentations by the insured. After several days of trial before a Superior Court judge, the Court entered judgment in favor of our client, ordered the insurance company to provide defense and indemnification of $1.0 million against the asbestos claims and awarded our client attorneys' fees.

Homeowner's Loss During Remodel - October 2005.
Our client suffered substantial damages as a result of the unlawful removal of asbestos from his home. His insurance company refused to pay for the cleanup of asbestos in the home. After two years of aggressive litigation, we were successful in resolving our client's claims through mediation.

Hail Damage - February 2005.
Our client sustained damage to his house from a hail storm. The insurance company agreed to replace only the siding on the two sides of the home that had holes. But the replacement siding would not match the rest of the house. After filing a lawsuit, we recovered a substantia l settlement for our client.

Disability Benefits - November 2004.
We filed a lawsuit against our client's health insurer in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey to secure long-term care disability coverage for our client, who was permanently disabled. We obtained a substantial settlement within 45 days of filing the Complaint.