Sometimes, one thing crosses my desk that stops me mid-sentence. Lately, an lawyer on an expert listserv wrote to me, annoyed and incredulous:
“We’re reaching out for details about formal and casual claims dealing with manuals, pointers, or different supplies from our good associates at Chubb/ACE Insurance coverage for an ongoing protection and discovery dispute. Chubb/ACE is taking the place in our case that the one claims-handling steering that exists is a 7-page ‘Greatest Practices’ pamphlet.”
A seven-page pamphlet. That’s the sum whole of claims knowledge supposedly governing one of many world’s largest, most subtle insurers.
Let’s name that what it’s: ludicrous.
Chubb and its predecessor, ACE, have claims operations spanning continents, with specialised models dealing with property, monetary traces, disaster, and sophisticated protection litigation. They make use of claims examiners, technical specialists, and trainers throughout hubs from Jersey Metropolis to Philadelphia and Irvine. The corporate is actively hiring an AVP, Declare Coach in California and an AVP, Declare – Protection & Complicated in New Jersey—roles that contain making ready coaching supplies, presenting to senior administration, and creating litigation and backbone methods. One other posting describes a Vice President, Studying & Growth, Declare Heart. This can be a place liable for coaching and creating Chubb’s North American claims professionals. Are the insurance coverage firm attorneys going to recommend that the coaching and procedures are handed down by phrase of mouth?
But, in discovery, Chubb’s counsel is seemingly telling courts that each one of this construction—the training departments, coach positions, best-practice facilities—boils all the way down to seven pages of “steering.” It’s an argument so strained it might snap a guitar string.
From a sensible standpoint, no trendy insurer might operate with out detailed claims procedures. Regulators, reinsurers, and auditors require documented requirements of efficiency. Market conduct exams routinely evaluate “claims programs, procedures, and pointers.” To fake in any other case isn’t solely implausible. As a substitute, it borders on misrepresentation if informed to a choose. I’m not sure precisely what was informed to the choose, however simply reporting on a colleague’s request for assist.
It’s additionally an moral downside. Any skilled insurance coverage protection lawyer is aware of that their shopper has written claims requirements, coaching applications, and operational manuals. To recommend they don’t exist in any respect invitations questions on candor {and professional} integrity. Attorneys can argue privilege, confidentiality, or scope. However arguing nonexistence, when the proof of existence is publicly posted on the corporate’s personal careers web page, is a bridge too far.
This sort of litigation posture erodes belief and delays justice. Discovery fights like these aren’t about whether or not a doc exists. They’re about whether or not the reality can survive company discomfort. If insurers need to boast about their world-class claims groups in job postings, they need to be able to admit in courtroom that these groups are skilled from one thing extra substantial than a pamphlet.
For what it’s value, I’m not making an attempt to scold Chubb about this. Chubb is successful my “fairest paying insurance coverage firm” survey, which I’ve been asking for suggestions on whereas giving my final a number of speeches. I doubt that they’re successful as a result of they solely have a 7-page information for deal with claims.
I’m making an attempt to deliver to mild a recurrent downside: insurers and their protection counsel making an attempt to cover and misrepresent the extent of coaching supplies and even claims dealing with directives purposely not positioned in manuals. Most massive insurance coverage corporations have coaching departments with hundreds of pages of procedures. Most even have lots of of claims dealing with directions on a regional and group foundation that don’t discover their method into manuals. I believe that these are sometimes not deeply looked for when hard-nosed policyholder attorneys request them.
Thought for the Day
“Info don’t stop to exist as a result of they’re ignored.”
— Aldous Huxley