Insurance Partners Jim Cooper and Kim Yelkin Featured in Business Journals
The Business Journals featured Houston Partner Jim Cooper, co-chair of Gardere's Policyholder Specialty Practice Group, and Kim Yelkin, chair of Gardere's Insurance Regulatory Practice, in a June 23 article titled "Complexity, regulatory shifts mark insurance law." An excerpt may be viewed below.
Complexity, regulatory shifts mark insurance law
Texas insurance law continues to be a very stringent, and sometimes complex, subject of debate. Attorneys say litigation provisions will continue to be an issue.
Kimberly Yelkin, a lawyer with Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP in Austin, says there may be a shift in the way insurers are regulated in the United States as a result of implementing Solvency II.
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Contractual liability exclusions are a large topic of debate too. Generally the exclusion eliminates coverage, subject to certain exception, where one party takes on or assumes the responsibility of another by contract. But the terms of this exclusion—how it's to be used and how the exceptions apply—are not easily understood. The issue of what is excluded from coverage has led to numerous arguments and litigation cases.
"There are cases pending on this (exclusion) that may make their way to the Texas Supreme Court," said Jim Cooper, of Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP in Houston. Courts are still trying to figure out what this exclusion means, he said, but in the process have created more confusion than clarity.