Into the Breach

Founded by brothers Dave and Ken DeBerry, Concord Specialty Risk was the true pioneer in the RWI space and one of the original carriers offering the product. With Ken’s recent retirement, Bryan and Gena are joined by his successor, Rustin Paul. Topics discussed included: • How Rustin intends to build on Concord’s proud heritage to grow in a competitive RWI marketplace • The one critical question t...

RWI coverage for healthcare deals has evolved -- years ago, healthcare transactions were generally difficult to insure; now, multiple RWI markets offer attractive coverage options and competitive rates. Still, healthcare deals have unique features that carry additional risk for insurers and can result in a more robust due diligence process before the policy is bound. In this episode, Bryan and Gen...

2021 was a historical year for RWI. Carriers and brokers placed more RWI policies than ever before. Premiums rose, reflecting the available supply and demand for the product. Multiple new carriers jumped into the North American market. But after an incredible 2021, what lies ahead in 2022 is an open question. Can RWI continue its winning streak, or do more ominous days lie ahead? To answer this qu...

Continuing our trend of how RWI can be successfully utilized in cross-border transactions, to kick-off 2022, Bryan and Gena are joined by John Antonecchia and Sean Flinn of BFL Canada’s M&A and Risk Management Practice, to discuss the current state of RWI in our neighbor to the north. Topics discussed included: • The development of the M&A practice at BFL Canada. • Latest update on premiums for Ca...

Perhaps no innovation better exemplifies the entrepreneurial spirit of transactional risk insurance than the development and growth of tax insurance. This niche product allows the insured to protect against known tax risks in a variety of areas—S corp status, energy credits, REITS, permanent establishment, estate tax, and independent contractor misclassification, to name a few. What’s more, tax in...

Continuing our podcast series on career paths in RWI, Bryan and Gena are joined in this latest episode by Thomas Bonfiglio, Senior Vice President, Transactional Risk Practice, CAC Specialty, for an illuminating discussion on the pros and cons of working as a transactional risk insurance broker versus a transactional risk insurance underwriter. Tom draws on his long career as both an underwriter at...

Coming off an exceptionally strong first half of 2021, reps and warranties insurance seems hotter than ever, aided by the receding pandemic, more interest in the product from corporate buyers, and pent-up M&A capital from private equity firms. To re-cap what we have seen so far in 2021, and preview what lies ahead for the second half of the year, Bryan and Gena are joined by Julia Papastavridis, M...

As corporate buyers turn to RWI as a deal solution, and insurance markets try to find creative ways to expand business in an increasingly competitive space, DUAL Transactional Risk has re-branded itself as DUAL Transaction Solutions and will begin offering excess D&O capacity in addition to its core RWI product. On this episode of the podcast, Bryan and Gena are joined by Dennis Kearns, President...

The oft-repeated mantra is that representations and warranties insurance is not a replacement for a target company’s underlying insurance policies, making such policies an important ancillary aspect of RWI coverage. But despite the key role that underlying insurance plays in the RWI process, insurance due diligence is not always well understood -- relegated to five minutes on the underwriting call...

With the inter-connected nature of the global economy, M&A deals today frequently have international components. The transactional risk insurance markets have largely “split” by geography in terms of policy type, with “W&I” policies underwritten in Europe and Asia generally offering less robust coverage than “RWI” policies in North America. Some creative carriers have started to offer special “hyb...

March 2021 marks one-year since COVID-19 took over the United States, rattling the U.S. M&A markets, and grinding deals to a virtual standstill. The advent of the virus also profoundly impacted the reps and warranties insurance product, leading insurers in the spring of 2020 to impose special “COVID-19 exclusions” and requiring heightened due diligence around COVID-19 related risks. But by Decembe...

Hardly anyone goes to law school or business school to work in transactional risk insurance. Yet, the growth of the RWI industry in the last ten years has led to an explosion of jobs in the field, usually filled by former M&A attorneys who land in the industry by accident. So, how exactly does one go about making a career shift to RWI and what can you expect when you get there? To answer these que...

Even though RWI is an innovative product, most practitioners in the space utilize a decidedly low-tech approach to the deal process: a seemingly endless stream of emails back and forth between insurers, brokers, insured, and underwriting counsel. This cumbersome process can lead to lost productivity and an inefficient use of time. The RW-Exchange (www. RW-Exchange.com) is a new tech resource that...

The ability to cabin off problematic litigation through the strategic use of insurance is an underappreciated segment of the transactional risk insurance markets. In the same vein, as the product matures, contingent risk insurance may play an important role in allocating risk outside of transactions as well. In this episode, Bryan and Gena are joined by David Haigh, Managing Director, Atlantic Glo...

With the explosion of the RWI product and increase in the number of insurance carriers, buyer insured have watched reps and warranties insurance evolve in the past five years and are now faced with important choices to make when it comes to selecting a carrier to underwrite a reps and warranties insurance policy. In this episode, Bryan and Gena are joined by prominent private equity attorney, Neal...

While the traditional PE buyout market still comprises the bulk of RWI deals, the product is starting to gain traction in a variety of new contexts. These “outside the box” approaches represent novel ways to expand the use of reps and warranties insurance and touch previously untapped industries and sectors. In this episode, Bryan and Gena are joined by their first international guest, the UK-base...

The reps and warranties industry is well-known for having a series of conferences throughout the year where insurers, brokers, insured, and outside counsel discuss critical issues facing the industry. The COVID-19 pandemic has scuttled these in-person events for 2020 and likely beyond. CAC Specialty recently hosted its first-ever virtual conference with multiple panels devoted to RWI. In this epis...

Everyone knows the drill: you find out that the insured is buying your policy, but the parties want to sign ASAP. Suddenly, the insurer is pressured to finish underwriting, due diligence, and meet the parties expectations, all while not missing any critical issues. In this episode, Bryan and Gena are joined by Nick Tuliebitz, Co-Head of M&A Insurance North America at AssuredPartners. Nick will rev...

Since COVID-19 struck, the transactional risk insurance markets have been faced with difficult questions on how to address a potential COVID-19 exclusion from RWI policies. In this episode, Bryan and Gena are joined by Scott Pegram, Senior Underwriting Manager at Liberty Global Transaction Solutions to discuss: • The current state of M&A and the continuing impact of COVID-19 • Liberty’s approach t...