Palisade Insurance Partners, an independently operated specialty managing general underwriter (MGU), has launched a new business to provide a range of contingent legal risk insurance and other specialty insurance products across the U.S. and International markets.
Headquartered in New York, Palisade specializes in underwriting litigation-related insurance, other contingent risks, and transaction insurance, including Rep & Warranty and tax insurance.
Palisade’s expertise extends to risks on both the plaintiff and defendant sides of litigation, and its products will be designed to address risks relating to both legal assets and legal liabilities.
Palisade is led by President John McNally, a veteran insurance industry executive who most recently led NFP’s Merger & Acquisition Risk Solutions Group focused on transaction insurance.
Earlier in his career, McNally led the transaction insurance practice at JLT Specialty USA and has held senior underwriting roles at AIG and Beazley Group in New York and London.
McNally commented: “The needs of corporate clients, asset managers, and others for insurance solutions to mitigate and manage contingent legal risks has outgrown available market capacity considerably.
“For context, the global litigation finance market is estimated at a nearly $12bn annual industry, with significant year-over-year growth, while the global legal services industry is expected to exceed $1tn in fee revenue by 2022.
“This significant momentum in other areas of legal services and legal risk management has far outpaced the development of the insurance market in this area, creating a strong demand for insurance capacity covering these risks and a dedicated platform with the expertise to underwrite them.
“Palisade is ideally positioned to meet the sector demand by leveraging our expertise to deliver solutions uniquely tailored to address litigation and other contingent risks. We look forward to scaling our team of risk and underwriting professionals as we begin to offer products later this year.”
