Overview
Locke Lord’s insurance transactional and regulatory practice began many decades ago, mainly with the representation of the London insurance markets in the U.S. Since then, our practice has extended to representing both foreign and U.S. insurance companies, producers and their affiliates in their transactional, regulatory, securities and tax matters, both nationally and with respect to their non-U.S. operations.
We have significant experience in mergers and acquisitions and all types of reinsurance transactions ─ bulk, treaty, facultative, indemnity and assumption, modified coinsurance and stop loss reinsurance.
We regularly advise our corporate clients on alternative risk transfer mechanisms, including the formation of captive insurers. In doing so, we provide advice and assistance related to such structures, including choice of domicile, reinsurance arrangements, agreements with service providers (such as captive managers), and tax issues. We have experience with both single-parent and group captive formations in a variety of domiciles, such as Bermuda, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
We also regularly counsel foreign clients in structuring the regulatory and commercial aspects of accepting U.S. risks from abroad, including the use of reinsurance and surplus lines, direct placements and marine exemptions, as well as structuring U.S. operations for foreign investors and the use of off-shore captives. We have served as counsel to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to assist in the drafting of legislation and regulations to create their Offshore Insurance and Reinsurance Center, and have assisted foreign reinsurers in the bidding process for the privatization of the Brazilian state-owned reinsurer. We have helped U.K. insurers obtain required U.S. approvals for U.K. Part VII transfers. Our advice on reinsurance matters includes counsel on credit for reinsurance and the creation of the accredited reinsurer model (which has allowed reinsurers to dispense with the need to post security for reinsurance credit). In the course of our representations, we have assisted investors in organizing insurers in Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Barbados and the Cayman Islands. As we assist foreign insurers in structuring their overall U.S. operations, we also provide advice related to tax, corporate and securities issues. Our clients consist of insurers and investors from around the world, including Europe, Asia and Latin America.