Lawyer Blasts London's Shift On Asbestos
London Editor
A leading U.S. attorney representing policyholders responsible for asbestos bodily injuries lashed out at the recent decision by Equitas and a group of London market companies to require medical documentation before asbestos claims will be paid.
As of June 1, the London market will require adequate medical evidence of a claimants injury and the identification of the defendants product responsible for the asbestos-related injury before approving a claim. (See NU, May 14, page 1.)
"It is dishonest, corrupt and immoral to change your claims-handling procedures in the middle of the game," said Eugene Anderson, partner with Anderson Kill and Olick, the New York City-based law firm.
"Equitas sold certain standards to policyholders, which it may not like, but thats what it sold and thats what it ought to stick with," he said. (Equitas is the company set up to reinsure and run off pre-1993 non-life liabilities of Lloyds of London syndicates.)
"This is a massive revision to the policies. There is a phrase, which John Grisham, the novelist, made somewhat famouspost-loss underwriting. Thats what this is," Mr. Anderson continued.
"This re-writing of your claims rules is such a massive corruption that if we werent dealing with insurance, people would go to jail for it," he charged.
"If a bank said to depositors, we dont have enough money to pay all of you and therefore were only going to pay [some depositors and not others], there would be a massive outcry," he said.
However, a representative of Equitas said underwriters were well within their rights in their response to mounting asbestos claims.
"The documentation requirements recently issued by London underwriters represent minimal standards of documentation required by underwriters to support the reimbursement of asbestos bodily injury claims," said James Burcke, representative of Equitas in London.
"We believe that it is entirely proper to issue such requirements," he said. "Were asking for documentation that the claimant suffers from an asbestos-related injury and that the substance that allegedly caused the injury was a product of the policyholder."
(For more on this issue, see "London Might Not Have Last Word On Asbestos Claims".)
Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, May 28, 2001. Copyright 2001 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
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