Let Ground Zero Rebuilding Begin: Spitzer Brokers Settlement with 7 Insurers

May 23, 2007

  • May 23, 2007 at 4:23 am
    Greenberg says:
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    That\’s a relief! Now he can go back to attacking Hal.

  • May 24, 2007 at 4:29 am
    tiger says:
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    I am puzzled by Silverstein\’s apparent lack of interest in pursuing Willis for some relief. They allowed him to underinsure the buildings with the blanket deal, the forms issues look pretty dodgy and some of the deposition info that hit the press indicated the Willis folks didn\’t have all the apps submitted and had to back into some of the coverage (I guess it was a relatively new account). By all rights, this should be the largest broker E&O case (against Willis) in history…but not a single word about it in the press-isn\’t that strange?

  • May 23, 2007 at 4:50 am
    Waitin\' for 2008 says:
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    Don\’t worry Greenberg, Spitz will be the US AG in a couple years, and will have bigger fish to fry.

  • May 23, 2007 at 4:52 am
    Curious George says:
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    So what was the ultimate payout?

    4.68 billion + 2 billion?

    — or —

    2.34 billion + 2 billion?

    One occurrence, right?

  • May 23, 2007 at 5:03 am
    Smitty says:
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    who knows, poorly written article, I thought the TIV was 3.55 billion with 1 occurrence, double that with 2 but one company of many was smart & wrote the policy binder to limit it to 1 occurrence, this happened in 2001 if they paid 4.6 billion total does that include interest? WHo knows?

    I guess the writer wasn\’t really concerned with the facts or numbers, what\’s a few billion anyway?

    The settlement is bogus, they blew hundreds of millions on litigation before they came to a settlement?

    That stinks, this case should have been decided by one court within 1 month of the occurrence(s) without spending hundreds of millions on litigation, this was sloppy and lame, Spitzer deserves no credit for anything except blurring the issue with indecision.

  • May 23, 2007 at 5:10 am
    slim jim says:
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    Just rack it up to biz as usual. Spitzer grandstanding,looking for another step on the ladder to the top.

  • May 23, 2007 at 5:12 am
    Tex says:
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    Billions of dollars, litigation, loss of lives, Iraq. Are 9/11 ramifications going to really end?

  • May 23, 2007 at 5:51 am
    Mr. E&O says:
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    I don\’t see any payment by the Willis E&O carrier. I remember reading that the broker admitted in court that he made no notes of his discussions with insurance carriers as to which form was being bound. IE: no documentation in file. Hmmm??

  • May 23, 2007 at 6:00 am
    temblor says:
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    Really sloppy brokering.

    Non-concurrent policy forms in different layers, underinsured by 50% (that would have been Silverstein\’s decision, making the assumption that they would never lose more than 1 building).

    I wonder if the broker even questioned the insured values or, as so many do, just rolling over Marsh\’s old values.

  • May 24, 2007 at 8:47 am
    Icee says:
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    According to a synopsis of a Wall Street Journal article, the settlement was actually negotiated by the state insurance superintendent and Spitzer only recently joined the nedotiations.

    Take a look at the source of this article to see why no one but Spitzer is mentioned.

    P.S. the $2 billion is included in the $4.68 billion figure mentioned in this article.

  • May 24, 2007 at 9:10 am
    Bill Reed says:
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    If memory serves me correctly, not only were the buildings under-insured, but Silverstein was trying to convice everyone that the limits should apply separately to each building since there were two planes. He lost the multiple occurence argument. I believe the courts interpreted it as a single occurence with two incidents = one limit.

  • May 24, 2007 at 9:20 am
    Confused says:
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    Were there 2 occurences of your comments or one?

  • May 24, 2007 at 10:19 am
    Danny says:
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    No, they are not going to end. We are at war with people that hate us and any other nation/people that does not believe exactly as they do. Even within their own borders they kill each other. They have and will come after us to kill us unless we have the fortitude to stop them. Iraq and Afganistan are not about what we want they are about the reality that all it takes for evil to triump is for good people to do nothing.

  • May 24, 2007 at 12:13 pm
    Jeff says:
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    Danny,

    Thanks for the talking points memo…I hadn\’t had a chance to pick up my copy this morning.

    I guess it\’s time to bring back the draft if we\’re going to fight the evil doers all over the world. Tell me, what part of Africa should we start with? There\’s quite a few \”evil doers\” there, we have islamic regimes, we have racial genocide, etc. So, seriously, which part should we start with? Why don\’t we invade North Korea? They had as much to do with 9/11 as Iraq did. Nothing (if you were wondering), and at least NK has nukes. What about South America. I think that Hugo guy is getting out of hand. We should probably send troops there too.

    Or maybe, just maybe, we should bolster our borders, increase funding to intelligence and police agencies, strenghthen foreign relations, and utilize special forces to specifically target terrorist groups instead of aleinating the entire planet. Just a thought.

  • May 24, 2007 at 12:38 pm
    Glen Williams says:
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    Am I missing something? I thought we were discussing insurance and Spitzer?

  • May 24, 2007 at 1:01 am
    igo says:
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    There were two different trials: The first determined which insurers were bound under the \”Wilprop\” form that an upper court deemed to contain an occurance definition that could only be interrpreted as a single occurance.

    The 2nd trial included the insurers who had not bound to that form and whose binders either did not include an occurance def at all(Travelers et al)or who had a less specific occurance definition in their binder than Wilprop.
    Silverstein lost the first case but won the second

  • May 24, 2007 at 1:31 am
    tiger says:
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    Against Willis? I just don\’t get that-it\’s up to the broker or agent to make sure the coverage was right and would work under any circumstance…this looks like a cluster $%^& here with WilProp and other policy forms mixed together, inadequate coverage, no clear definition before an incident about what constitutes an \”occurence\”, etc. Why hasn\’t Willis gotten hauled in to court?

  • May 24, 2007 at 1:48 am
    Realist says:
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    This battle will be fought by my grandkids(my kids have already fought it and continue) and their kids too. Radical Muslims want to kill us all, even your momas, daughters, sons and your spouses.
    I believe it\’s ENVY.

  • May 24, 2007 at 2:25 am
    prakash v. naor says:
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    I\’m a big fan of moma, it\’s a good museum. And it\’s kind of near WTC, which is what this thread used to be about.

  • December 19, 2008 at 3:56 am
    Dan says:
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    The Al qaeda is a figment on media imagination.

  • December 19, 2008 at 9:52 am
    YakimaLars says:
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    I have wondered this since the beginning. Can’t someone at Insurance Journal dig into this? Tiger and Mr. E&O raise valid points.



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