It’s interesting. I have been at DRI’s 2024 Insurance Coverage and Practice Symposium all day, and much of the discussion is either directly about or tangentially related to the impact of artificial intelligence on insurance. To me, the consistent theme that underlies all of the discussion is the ability of AI tools to improve the
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Adding Private Equity Investment Options to 401(k) Plans May Be a Good Idea – for Everyone Who Is Not a Plan Participant or a Plan Fiduciary
There’s an old New Yorker cartoon that shows a grandfatherly man talking to a younger man in a library, and he says to him that “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it [while] those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.” Am I the…
Look, There in the Sky – It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane. No, It’s Super Lawyer! (I Can’t Be the First to Have Made this Joke)
When I was in college in D.C. lo these many years ago, a friend of mine’s uncle took us out to dinner at the Watergate complex (still the only time I have ever been inside it). He had been a tech guy at HBO in its early days, when he quit on the spot over…
Will Climate Change Bring With It an Insurance Apocalypse?
Many of you know that I have been writing about the intersection of the insurance industry and climate change for almost long as this blog has existed. I have long been interested in the economic relationship between the two, as the industry responds to climate losses and, in so doing, forces homeowners and other insureds…
Moral Hazard, Homeowners Insurance and Climate Change
The relationship between climate change and the insurance industry has been a favorite hobbyhorse of mine for over a decade, since I learned that Lloyd’s was closely studying the potential impact of climate change on insurance rates, profits, underwriting and the like. Good for the industry, I said then in my blog, for taking a…
Loper, Chevron and the (Underrated) Value of Predictability
I suspect that no one understands as well as an ERISA litigator the extent to which the rules governing judicial decision making either determine the outcome of a dispute or, at a minimum, dictate a specific and limited range of potential outcomes as well as establish the respective odds of each. In the context of…
Time to Polish Off an Old Chestnut and Put it Back Out on the Mantel: Fixing Retirement Readiness by Postponing the Age of Retirement
Many years ago, back when we were closer to the tipping point where 401(k) plans replaced pensions for the majority of employees, there was a great deal of discussion about whether employees could possibly be financially ready to retire at age 65 absent pensions. I argued at the time that the discussion was wrong and…
Why Insurance Is a Climate Activist’s Best Friend
I began writing on climate change as a litigation and insurance issue back in 2007 and have been writing on the role of insurance as a potential and actual driver of climate change policy since at least 2010. Since then, it has become clear that the single greatest corporate driver of changes intended to…
Chevron, Little Fish and ERISA
The Supreme Court today hears argument in a case concerning many politicians’ and lawyers’ favorite pinata, the Chevron doctrine. It would likely be naïve to believe that the case won’t at least further restrain agency authority and discretion, although whether the case will be the vehicle for complete abrogation of the doctrine is…
Generative AI, Nuclear Verdicts and Insurance Bad Faith: My Takeaways from DRI’s Insurance Coverage and Practice Symposium
As usual, I had a terrific experience at DRI’s annual Insurance Coverage and Practice Symposium in midtown Manhattan, which was held last week. I had gone in many ways simply for two particular presentations, one on generative AI and the other on the impact of nuclear verdicts on insurance coverage and bad faith issues, although…