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Mealey's Reinsurance

  • July 15, 2025

    PHL Rehabilitator To Propose Moratorium Modifications Before End Of July

    WATERBURY, Conn. — In a supplement to his second accounting and status report, the rehabilitator of PHL Variable Insurance Co. told a Connecticut court that by the end of July, he intends to file a motion to modify a moratorium order that affects payments of benefits or investment obligations for policies issued by PHL.

  • July 14, 2025

    General Agent’s Consolidation Bid Nixed In Fronting Arrangement Dispute

    NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge denied a managing general agent’s (MGA) motion to consolidate a case centered on a disputed fronting agreement with a “Sister Lawsuit,” calling the request premature due to a pending motion to dismiss in the related action.

  • July 14, 2025

    Oral Argument Set In Appeal On Good Farming Practices Crop Insurance Determination

    NEW ORLEANS — Oral argument is scheduled for Aug. 5 in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an appeal filed by a peanut and cotton farmer seeking reversal of a summary judgment ruling, which held that federal regulators implemented proper standards and correctly considered expert testimony in concluding that the farmer failed to follow good farming practices (GFP) for crop insurance coverage purposes.

  • July 10, 2025

    Steel Firm Seeks Tax Refund From IRS Over Captive Reinsurance Disallowance

    TULSA, Okla. — The owners of a steel building manufacturer in a complaint filed in a federal court in Oklahoma seeking to recover a federal income tax for a payment they allege was erroneously assessed and collected for the 2018 tax year, claiming that the Internal Revenue Service improperly disallowed a legitimate business expense related to a captive reinsurance arrangement facilitated through a third-party insurance provider.

  • July 03, 2025

    Ghanaian Insurer Sends Letters Rogatory In Reinsurance Breach Of Contract Row

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge on July 2 directed the issuance of letters rogatory to a Ghanaian insurer and three of its employees to acquire otherwise unobtainable information as part of a gold mining equipment dispute over whether the defendants are direct insurers or reinsurers of the plaintiffs.

  • July 03, 2025

    Judge: Reinsurer Failed To Meet Burden Of Proof In Motion For Partial Judgment

    FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas federal judge denied a reinsurer’s motion for partial judgment on the pleadings for claims brought by National Transportation Associates Inc. (NTA) concerning a dispute over whether contractual mandates issued by California and other states render a commission payment structure unenforceable; the case is part of broader consolidated litigation among reinsurers and NTA that centers on the reinsurers’ claims of inflated provisional commissions and breach of various agreements.

  • July 03, 2025

    Dismissal Stipulated In Coverage Dispute Over Loss Of Patent Litigation Counsel

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An inventor, his Colorado-based company and a captive insurer filed a joint stipulation of dismissal in a Tennessee federal court, resolving and dismissing with prejudice all claims asserted in a case concerning a coverage dispute over loss of patent litigation counsel.

  • July 02, 2025

    Reinsurer Moves To Seal Cross-Motion To Confirm Confidential Arbitration Award

    NEW YORK — A reinsurer asked a New York federal court to seal portions of its cross-motion to confirm a confidential arbitration award it won against a food processing company concerning a poultry rendering facility fire and subsequent reinsurance dispute due to a confidentiality agreement between the parties; the food processing company’s petition and documents in support were previously sealed in this case.

  • July 01, 2025

    California Appellate Court Lets Rehab Plan For Workers’ Comp Insurer Stand

    SAN FRANCISCO — In an unpublished opinion, the First District California Court of Appeal upheld a nonconsensual rehabilitation plan for a workers’ compensation insurance carrier; the plan was approved as part of conservation proceedings brought by California’s insurance regulator and includes options to resolve dozens of reinsurance participation agreement (RPA) lawsuits.

  • July 01, 2025

    Oral Argument Set In Federal Circuit For ACA Reinsurance Takings Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Oral argument is scheduled for July 9 in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an appeal by two self-insured group health plan trusts challenging a U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruling that found they failed to establish a property appropriation by the federal government in a lawsuit over the Transitional Reinsurance Program (TRP) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).

  • June 30, 2025

    Reinsurer, General Agent Stipulate Dismissal; Breach Of Contract Suit Terminated

    FORT WORTH, Texas — A breach of contract suit concerning an underlying multimillion-dollar personal injury judgment involving a reinsurer and a general agent was dismissed after the parties filed a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice; in a text-only docket entry filed on the same day, a Texas federal court declared the litigation terminated.

  • June 30, 2025

    Oral Argument Set In 6th Circuit Appeal Of Collateral Estoppel Appeal

    CINCINNATI — Oral argument is scheduled for July 30 in an insurer’s appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concerning a ruling issued in a Michigan federal court that collateral estoppel applies to defense cost expenses resolved in a prior arbitration award as part of a dispute relating to asbestos lawsuits.

  • June 27, 2025

    California Judge Denies Insured’s Motion For Summary Adjudication As To UCL Claim

    LOS ANGELES — A California judge granted an insured’s motion for summary adjudication as to his declaratory relief claim in a lawsuit alleging that the California Fair Plan Association (CFP) issued property insurance policies with fire coverage that is unlawfully restrictive as to smoke damage claims but denied the insured’s motion as to his unfair competition law (UCL) claim, finding that he failed to satisfy his burden to establish standing to bring the UCL claim.

  • June 27, 2025

    Reinsurance Schemer Sentenced To Time Served, Probation And $100 Assessment

    MIAMI — After pleading guilty in April to conspiracy to commit money laundering in a case the U.S. government filed over a plot to bribe Ecuadorian officials for reinsurance business, the general manager of two companies that acted as intermediaries for reinsurance companies was sentenced by a Florida federal court to time served, three years of supervised release and a $100 assessment.

  • June 26, 2025

    Sub-Broker Wins Dismissal From Insureds’ Negligence Suit Over Warehouse Losses

    NEW YORK — In a one-paragraph June 25 order stating that the reasons were “set forth on the record today,” a New York federal judge dismissed a defendant said it “acted as a sub-broker” from a suit seeking $41 million in a dispute involving reinsurance and a warehouse in Afghanistan.

  • June 24, 2025

    COMMENTARY: The Receiver Of An Insolvent Insurer “Stands in the Shoes” Of The Ceding Insurer When Pursuing Recoveries Against Reinsurers

    By Debra J. Hall and Robert M. Hall

  • June 25, 2025

    Claiming APA Violation, Captive Insurance Entities File Suit To Vacate IRS Rule

    HOUSTON — A plastics manufacturer, a captive insurer and a microcaptive manager filed a complaint in a federal court in Texas challenging under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)  an Internal Revenue Service final rule that mandates new reporting requirements on small captive insurers, seeking to have the regulation set aside as unlawful, arbitrary and capricious and an overreach of statutory authority.

  • June 24, 2025

    Declaration Is Struck, For Now, In Case Challenging Pension Risk Transfers

    NEW YORK — Largely granting an unopposed motion, a New York federal judge struck a declaration that retirees who filed a putative class action challenging pension risk transfers (PRTs) to Prudential Insurance Company of America (PICA) and RGA Reinsurance Co. (RGA) attached to and referenced in their amended complaint but denied a request to order alterations to the operative complaint.

  • June 24, 2025

    Financer Denied Intervention In Reinsurance Row For Lack Of Protectable Interest

    CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge denied a nonparty vehicle service contract financer’s motion to intervene in a reinsurance dispute between an insurer and reinsurer, finding that the financer lacked a “legally protectable interest to intervene as of right” and was not a necessary party to the litigation that it ultimately sought to dismiss.

  • June 23, 2025

    Lower Court Misinterpreted Reinsurance Contract, Insurer Tells 5th Circuit

    NEW ORLEANS — Contending that a district court misinterpreted three provisions of a 2017 reinsurance authorization agreement and erroneously granted a reinsurance broker’s motion to dismiss, a homeowners insurer filed an appellate brief in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals challenging the dismissal of its breach of contract claim stemming from the collapse of Vesttoo Ltd.

  • June 20, 2025

    Federal Judge Tosses Reinsurers RICO ‘Fake Accident’ Suit Against Law Firm, Agent

    BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A New York federal judge on June 19 dismissed without prejudice a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit against a law firm and its agent accused of a “scheme” to defraud a reinsurer and a related party by staging construction-related workers’ compensation accidents, finding that the claims fail for lack of pleading “direct injuries.”

  • June 18, 2025

    Upon Reconsideration, Dismissal Motion Again Denied In Reinsurance Dispute

    CHICAGO — After granting reconsideration, an Illinois federal judge again denied an insurer’s motion for dismissal of its reinsurer’s breach of contract claim, ruling that the contested definition of what constitutes a reinsurance policy under the disputed contract creates a question of fact that cannot be resolved on a motion to dismiss and that contradictory economic reports establish another factual dispute.

  • June 18, 2025

    Plaintiff Cites N.Y. Federal Ruling In Discovery Row Involving Reinsurance Info

    STATESVILLE, N.C. — The plaintiff in a bad faith suit over an excess liability insurer’s alleged duty to indemnify has filed a notice of supplemental authority in which it directs the attention of a North Carolina federal court to a New York federal court ruling that it says “held that reserve and reinsurance information is discoverable in an insurance coverage action.”

  • June 18, 2025

    Stay Granted, Trial Vacated In Captive Insurance Dispute After Settlement Offer

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge stayed litigation and vacated a forthcoming trial date to allow time for the United States to respond to and prepare acceptance of a written offer submitted by the executive of a purported captive insurance company that the United States says would resolve all claims and counterclaims brought forth in the litigation. 

  • June 18, 2025

    English Justice Rules That Aircraft Losses Fall Under War Risk Coverage

    LONDON — In a 230-page ruling pertaining to six cases filed over aircraft and engine leases affected by the legal and economic fallout of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, an English justice concluded in part that there were losses worth billions of dollars and that war risk (WR) rather than hull all risks (AR) coverage should apply.