Excess Insurer's Duties to Defend and Indemnify: Exhaustion, Claims Not Covered by Primary, Defense Cost Reimbursement

Mr. Mayerson specializes in complex insurance-coverage disputes and advice on behalf of policyholders, such as businesses, nonprofits, directors, executives, fiduciaries, and individuals. He has appeared as lead counsel as the policyholder lawyer in many jurisdictions across the country (both at the trial and appellate levels) and has participated in arbitrations in the US and abroad. Some of the subject matters for which Mr. Mayerson has pursued insurance recovery as policyholder lawyer include asbestos liabilities, environmental liabilities and clean-up costs, toxic torts, product liability, medical-device liabilities, class actions, securities claim, legal malpractice, criminal and Congressional investigations, ERISA fiduciary claims, intellectual property claims, antitrust and business torts, contaminated food, genetically modified crops, silica liability, employment practices including discrimination, fidelity and employee-dishonesty claims, first-party property, business-interruption and time-element coverages, and natural disasters including storms, hurricanes, flood, and tornadoes. A frequent author and speaker on insurance-law topics, he has taught the insurance-law course at both Georgetown University Law Center and the George Washington University Law School. Mr. Mayerson is the co-editor of New Appleman Insurance Law Practice Guide, the most widely used practice guide in the field and used by lawyers and claims people throughout the United States. He has published articles on the duty to defend and recovery of litigation costs, providing notice to insurance companies including involving them appropriately in settlements of claims against the policyholder, state-of-the art "integrated risk" and enterprise risk coverage programs, management of complex insurance coverage disputes in court, recovery for environmental liabilities including under specialty "cost cap" and clean-up cost or pollution legal liability policies, insurance recovery for losses from contaminated food and genetically modified crops, cyber risk and B2B transactions, settlement of complex insurance-coverage disputes, and insurance company bad faith.

Mr. Seaman is a commercial litigator and trial lawyer with more than 38 years of experience. He is widely regarded as one of the leading attorneys in the United States representing insurers and reinsurers in property and casualty matters. Mr. Seaman is known for employing his deep knowledge of the law and insurance industry, strategic thinking, and honed trial and appellate advocacy to produce creative solutions and outstanding results for clients. Clients regularly turn to Mr. Seaman and his team for counsel and representation in challenging and high-stakes insurance and business matters. He has a long track record of successfully representing companies before trial courts, appellate courts, and arbitration panels across the country in a variety of cases and matters involving general liability coverage (primary, umbrella, and excess), professional liability coverage, directors and officers liability insurance, first-party property coverage, bad faith and extra-contractual matters, fee disputes, and facultative and treaty reinsurance contracts. Mr. Seaman also advises and represents companies on cyber, privacy, data breach, IoT, nanotechnology, gig economy, viruses and pandemics, representations and warranties, transactional insurance, social unrest, ESG, climate change, and other emerging issues, as well as a wide-range of case-specific and portfolio issues. He also has handled a variety of challenging international, professional liability, health/life science, director and officer liability, tort and product liability, and business and commercial cases. Mr. Seaman is co-author of the two volume treatise, Allocation of Losses in Complex Insurance Coverage Claims (13th Ed. 2025).