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Home - Warner Norcross + Judd LLP

Warner's Insurance Practice Group includes a broad range of attorneys with decades of experience assisting clients with insurance matters. Our team includes several attorneys who once represented insurance companies and offer an insider's perspective for how insurance companies handle and litigate claims. This breadth of experience allows us to provide efficient, practical and cutting-edge representation in a wide variety of insurance matters, including evaluating and procuring policy coverage for individuals and businesses and pursuing coverage claims on behalf of policyholders.

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Insurance claims can often be a minefield. What appears to be a simple claim can quickly morph into a bewildering maze of exclusionary language, trigger theories, allocation problems and reservations of rights. These are concepts the insurance company may use to minimize its own exposure and to deny coverage, if possible. A client not familiar with these concepts may find its claims being denied, despite having paid thousands of dollars in premiums.

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Our insurance litigators will help level the playing field. Our lawyers have experience with a wide range of insurance coverage disputes, allowing them to quickly and effectively identify the weaknesses in the insurance company’s position. This knowledge and experience allows us to resolve many coverage disputes without litigation, saving our clients thousands of dollars in litigation costs.

But when negotiations are not effective, our insurance team is ready and willing to vindicate our clients' claims in court. We have litigated dozens of the most complicated insurance coverage actions, including long-tail environmental exposure cases with policies and losses going back several decades. Our attorneys are accomplished trial and appellate litigators who have experience with virtually every type of policy on the market today, including property, commercial general liability, directors and officers liability, errors and omissions, business interruption, key man, employment practices liability, malpractice, products liability, life and health insurance and no-fault.

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Several members of our insurance team are also members of the WN&amp;J Appellate Practice Group and regularly handle insurance appeals in state and federal courts, sometimes involving groundbreaking issues. This means we offer the highest quality representation for insurance appellate matters, whether the goal is to preserve a lower-court victory or get an unfavorable result overturned on appeal.

Dispute resolution is not the only area where our Insurance Practice team adds value. We offer a wide range of insurance counseling services to ensure our clients have the coverage necessary to manage the risks associated with their businesses. These services include, among other things:

Few, if any, Michigan firms can match the depth and breadth of Warner’s Insurance Practice team. For more information or a consultation, please contact our Insurance Practice Group Chair, Jason Byrne, at 616.752.2263or <a href="mailto:jbyrne@wnj.com">jbryne@wnj.com</a>.

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Insurance Litigation Sub-Practice cropped

Warner Selected as USLAW NETWORK Member Firm

Partner

Kristina M. Araya

Charles N. Ash Jr.

Jason L. Byrne

Associate

Carly A. Zagaroli

Warner represented an insurance settlements company in a dispute over an individual&rsquo;s sale of life insurance policies. We obtained a dismissal of the complaint through an initial dismissal motion.
Harahan v. FairMarket Life Settlements Corp., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82248

Litigation - Insurance

Litigation – Sale of Life Insurance Policies

Warner served as appellate Counsel in Ile v. Foremost Ins. Co.
The Michigan Supreme Court adopted an insurance policy interpretation advanced by Warner and reversed the lower courts&#8217; judgment against our client.
Ile v. Foremost Ins. Co., 493 Mich. 915; 823 NW2d 426 (2012)

Insurance – Policy Interpretation

Warner provided successful amicus curiae representation in the Michigan Supreme Court&#8217;s decision to overrule longstanding line of authority denying statutory prejudgment interest during interlocutory appeal periods, resulting in a $7 million benefit to our client.
Morales v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 672 N.W.2d 849 (Mich. 2003)

Litigation

Litigation – Prejudgment Interest

As amicus curiae, successfully persuaded the Michigan Supreme Court to reverse the court of appeals and hold that a plaintiff who suffers successive injuries has the burden of proving a current injury was caused by the subject accident, not an independent occurrence.
Benefiel v. Auto-Owners Insurance Co., 759 N.W.2d 814 (Mich. 2008):&nbsp;

Amicus Curiae in Insurance Coverage Litigation

Charter Township of White Lake v. Ciurlik Enterprises, No. 324976, (Mich. Ct. App. 2014):  Persuaded the Court of Appeals to grant immediate consideration of Ciurlik Enterprise’s interlocutory appeal and peremptorily reverse the lower court’s preliminary injunction as an abuse of discretion.

Reversal of Lower Court’s Preliminary Injunction

Warner attorneys obtained a seven-figure insurance settlement for our client from an insurance company who initially denied them coverage for underlying litigation, by focusing on an obscure provision in the commercial general liability insurance policy.

Insurance Coverage Dispute

Assisted in obtaining judgment in federal court that insurance company was obligated to defend major American manufacturer in seven-figure copyright infringement action

Judgment Against Insurance Company

Represented an insurance settlements company in dispute over an individual’s sale of life insurance policies, obtaining dismissal of the complaint through an initial dismissal motion. Harahan v. FairMarket Life Settlements Corp., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82248

Dispute Over Sale of Life Insurance Policy

Warner was the successful lead trial counsel for Consumers Energy in massive coverage litigation against Lloyd&rsquo;s of London and a London market insurer.

Consumers Energy Insurance Litigation

Yono v. Michigan Dep’t of Transportation, 864 N.W.2d 142 (Mich. 2015):  Represented the Michigan County Road Commission Self-Insurance Pool and County Road Association in persuading the court to grant leave to appeal the issue of MDOT’s governmental immunity for personal injury on a highway.

MI Department of Transportation – Personal Injury Litigation

Warner represented Southern-Owners Insurance in persuading the Eleventh Circuit to overrule its earlier misinterpretation of an exclusion in the standard Hired Auto and Non-owned Auto Endorsement in Southern-Owners&rsquo; corporate general-liability insurance policy.
Southern-Owners Ins. Co. v. Moore, No. 14-15386, _ F.3d _ (11th Cir. 2017):&nbsp;

Insurance Company Case Over Policy Exclusion

Warner obtained judgment in federal court that a Chinese insurance company was obligated to defend major American manufacturer in products liability action arising out of a Chinese-supplied component part.
Whirlpool Corporation&nbsp;v China Pacific Insurance Company&nbsp;(Western District of Michigan, 2011).

Judgment in Federal Court on Insurance Coverage for Product Liability Action

MI Federal Court Allows Salon’s Covid-19 Insurance Case to Proceed in Court Under Communicable Disease Provision

Insurance

Litigation and Dispute Resolution

Insurance Litigation

The Warner Norcross + Judd LLP lawyer responsible for the contents of our advertising and this website is managing partner <a href="/people/mark-j-wassink/" aria-label="Mark Wassink">Mark Wassink</a> who can be reached at <a href="mailto:mwassink@wnj.com" aria-label="email Mark Wassink">mwassink@wnj.com</a> or 616.752.2189. Please read our full <a href="/privacy-policy/" aria-label="see privacy policy">privacy policy</a> available on our website.

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