Notes from ALM's Complex Claims & Litigation Forum 2023

Overall, though, my biggest takeaway was the extent to which the three days of discussions reinforced two beliefs I hold dear about the insurance industry – that it is at the same time both the most static and the most dynamic of industries. (Credit: Matej Kastelic/Adobe Stock)

In late February I spoke at ALM’s Complex Claims and Litigation Forum in Las Vegas, where I was on a panel on “Tackling Market Disruptors – How to Manage Industry Shifts.” I spoke on a subject near and dear to my heart, which is the impact on claims handling of the rise of the nuclear verdict and the problems that ever-increasing liability exposures pose for the insurance industry in general.

I was joined on the panel by Jacqueline Schafer, a practicing attorney in Washington state and the founder and CEO of the artificial intelligence company, Clearbrief, who addressed the very newsworthy and timely subject of the impact of AI on litigation and insurance trends, as well as Daphine Willingham of State Farm Insurance, who gave a very interesting take on the view, from the claims side, of these trends. (I am also now stealing forevermore her metaphor for the rationale behind resolving problem claims early rather than later, which was that rotten fruit doesn’t get better while sitting on the countertop and instead just gets worse).