IN-PERSON EVENT AT LLOYDS OLD LIBRARY
Commercial insurance products are designed to cover the wide range of risks to which businesses operating in diverse industries around the world are exposed. While the scope of coverage under insurance products may differ, all insurance is predicated on the concept of “fortuity” – the idea that insurance covers risks resulting from chance events. This presentation will address fortuity in contexts ranging from manufacturing defect lawsuits to terrorist funding lawsuits, as well as in relation lawsuits arising from emerging risks such as climate change, opiod sales, and gun violence.
Our Speakers:
Richard H. Nicolaides, Jr.
Nicolaides Fink Thorpe Michaelides Sullivan LLP
Richard Nicolaides’ practice is focused exclusively on the complex business and legal issues of the global insurance industry. Richard works with insurers in Bermuda, London, Tokyo, and the U.S. to evaluate insurance coverage issues and resolve insurance coverage disputes involving risks under a variety of insurance products. He represents his clients in federal and state trial and appellate courts, as well as before arbitration panels, across the U.S. and abroad. Richard is a Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University School of Law. In addition, he serves as the president of AIDA US, the US chapter of the Association Internationale de Droit des Assurances (the International Insurance Law Association) and frequently lectures on emerging risks and other insurance-related issues.
Monica T. Sullivan
Nicolaides Fink Thorpe Michaelides Sullivan LLP
As managing partner and chair of the Executive Committee, Monica Sullivan oversees Nicolaides Fink Thorpe Michaelides Sullivan LLP’s operations and strategic direction. In addition to her leadership role, she maintains an active insurance coverage practice focused on litigation and arbitration, advising an international client base on a broad range of matters. Monica’s diverse experience includes counseling clients on claims administration and policy analysis, as well as representing them in complex disputes involving commercial general liability, managed care and healthcare, and professional liability matters. She also brings extensive experience to the Bermuda market, having served as U.S. claims counsel to Bermuda insurers for over 30 years. In this capacity, she has managed arbitrations both domestically and internationally.
Important – For admittance to Lloyd’s, please make sure to bring along your Lloyd’s pass if you have one or photo ID (driving licence, passport or work ID with company logo and full name).
We look forward to welcoming you to The Old Library, Lloyd’s Building, 1 Lime Street, London, EC3M 7HA.
BOOKING FOR THIS EVENT HAS NOW CLOSED.
Join us for an informative seminar in the Old Library at Lloyd’s London, exploring the key strategies behind preparing and defending business interruption claims.
Time: Please arrive by 5:30pm for a prompt start at 5:45pm
Location: Old Library, Lloyd’s of London
Drinks: Join us after the seminar for complimentary drinks at Bunch of Grapes, Lime Street, London
Overview:
Gain practical insights into the effective preparation and defence of business interruption cases. This session brings together the perspectives of both a forensic accountant and a lawyer, offering a well‑rounded view of the legal, technical, and strategic considerations involved in business interruption disputes.
Timothy Killen KC:
Timothy Killen KC specialises in commercial disputes and arbitrations, both in the UK and overseas. Tim’s practice encompasses various areas of specialist commercial law including insurance and reinsurance, commercial fraud, private international law, international trade, and professional negligence.
Much of Tim’s work is international in nature and many of his cases involve issues of jurisdiction and choice of law arising out of cross border litigation. He has a particularly good reputation in the Gulf Region, where he regularly appears in the DIFC Courts in Dubai, the ADGM Courts in Abu Dhabi and arbitrations seated in, and relating to, GCC countries.
Tim acts across all lines of non-marine (re)insurance and is listed in the Legal 500 as a band 1 practitioner in Insurance and Reinsurance work. In 2025 Tim was shortlisted for “Insurance Junior of the year” at the Chambers and Partners Bar Awards, and “Barrister of the year” at the Legal Business Awards. In 2024, Tim was awarded “Commercial Junior of the Year: English Bar in the Middle East” at the inaugural Legal 500 Middle East and North Africa Awards.
Matt Haddow:
Matt Haddow is a Partner and Head of the Forensic and Valuation Services team at Menzies, a national firm of accountants. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2009 and for the last 17 years has supported clients with forensic accounting, financial investigations, share and business valuation, and loss quantification often on complex and high-value disputes and loss claims including in group litigation. His work covers breach of contract and loss of profits claims, unfair prejudice petitions, professional negligence matters, shareholder and joint venture disputes, and issues arising from mergers, acquisitions, and business disposals.
Working closely with solicitors, barristers, litigation funders, insolvency practitioners, and regulators, Matthew is frequently instructed to prepare expert reports for the High Court, Criminal Courts, tribunals, and International Arbitration. He has also been appointed as a Single Joint Expert and to deliver Expert Determinations.
In addition to formal expert witness roles, Matthew acts as an advisor in disputes at all stages, often pre-litigation and as part of loss assessment for claims on insurance. His recent work also includes acting as an independent accountant for claimants in the Foskett Panel process relating to the HBOS Reading banking fraud and supporting victims of the Post Office scandal with submissions to Department of Business and Trade.
Important – For admittance to Lloyd’s, please make sure to bring along your Lloyd’s pass if you have one or photo ID (driving licence, passport or work ID with company logo and full name).
We look forward to welcoming you to The Old Library, Lloyd’s Building, 1 Lime Street, London, EC3M 7HA.
Please note booking for this event has now closed, if you require further assistance, please email office@bila.org.uk
Virtual Lecture
Prevailing research suggests that private organizations are not significantly changing their behaviour in response to the huge threat from cyber risks. Although many organizations have formal cybersecurity policies in place, the majority believe they are insufficiently prepared for a data breach and have not devoted adequate time and resource to protect consumers’ electronic and paper-based information from data breaches. Drawing from extensive interviews and research, Prof Talesh explains why cyber insurers have not been more successful in curtailing breaches. He offers a “new institutional theory of insurance”, which explains how insurers shape the content and meaning of law among organizations that purchase insurance. In response to vague and fragmented privacy laws and a lack of strong government oversight, insurers offer cyber insurance and a series of risk-management services to their customers. These services convey legitimacy to the public and to insureds, but fall short of improving the robustness, rendering them largely symbolic. All that high-level technical tools introduced by cyber insurers and security companies have accomplished is to institutionalize a norm that policyholders need these tools to avoid cybersecurity incidents. Regulators and rating agencies defer to cyber insurers, without evidence that these tools actually improve security. This bubbles up even into private and governmental standards, regulations and laws that allow insurers tremendous space to shape cybersecurity policy in society. Insurance companies and affiliated entities are influencing what privacy law and cybersecurity compliance means on the ground. Prof Talesh makes recommendations for how insurers and governments can work together to improve cybersecurity and foster greater algorithmic justice.
Our Speaker
Shauhin Talesh is professor of law at the University of California, Irvine. He also holds appointments in Sociology and Criminology, Law & Society. His research interests include the empirical study of law and business organizations, dispute resolution, consumer protection, insurance, and the relationship between law and social inequality. Professor Talesh is considered one of the leading scholars on organizational responses to law and compliance and the relationship between insurance, regulation and inequality. His most recent research focuses on how cyber insurance and insurance companies shape cybersecurity and privacy law compliance among private organizations. He previously published multiple articles on how insurance companies, through employment practice liability insurance, construct the meaning of compliance with anti-discrimination laws. In 2019, Professor Talesh was selected for the inaugural class of UC Irvine Beall Applied Innovation Faculty Innovation Fellows, a program established “to recognize faculty who have a record of translating their society-impacting research as well as to make them ambassadors for UCI’s innovation culture.” In 2022, Professor Talesh was elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF). Membership is limited to just one percent of lawyers licensed to practice in each jurisdiction. Talesh’s scholarship has appeared in multiple law and peer-reviewed social science journals including Law and Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, and Law & Policy, and has won multiple awards in Sociology, Political Science and Law & Society.
Virtual Lecture
The lecture will consider the nature of fines and whether or not the imposition of a fine can be insured having regard to issues of public policy.
Speaker
Peter MacDonald Eggers KC is a barrister at 7 King’s Bench Walk, London specialising in all aspects of commercial law, especially insurance and reinsurance. Peter acts as an arbitrator and has been a Deputy Judge of the High Court since 2017. Peter has appeared in leading insurance/reinsurance cases. Peter teaches at UCL and is a contributing editor of Chitty on Contracts, co-author of Good Faith and Insurance Contracts and Carver on Charterparties, and the author of Deceit: The Lie of the Law and The Vitiation of Contractual Consent.
IN-PERSON EVENT AT LLOYDS OLD LIBRARY
Over the next decade in this new and evolving technology-led environment, innovative and diverse ways for people and organisations to interact will influence every facet of insurance, from industry services through to actuarial forecasting, underwriting and reinsurance.
The increasing sophistication and availability of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics to process vast datasets is challenging traditional conceptions pertaining to asymmetry of information and raising issues as to the integrity of data being analysed and the assumptions of the predictive models being deployed. Moreover, the development and expansion of AI in relation to driverless cars, robots, the use of autonomous machines to execute complex financial transactions and other innovations gives rise to diverse legal concerns ranging from the concept of “AI personhood” to bias and liability issues – with obvious insurance implications.
As world economies become increasingly digital, and the physical and digital worlds continue to be inter-connected through the use of AI, robotics and immersive technologies such as the metaverse, the need for risk transfer will remain. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) and blockchain, powered by smart contracts, provides a mechanism for such a digital bridge whilst also being consistent with the current market structure within which risk is pooled and distributed.
The world has become increasingly digitally connected and will continue to become more so – particularly with advancements in, and growth of, ‘internet of things’ technology going forward in areas such as driverless transport, automated product ordering, and manufacturing.
The ability to access ‘Big Data’ in conjunction with technological advances in artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analytics and blockchain create the foundation and operational capacity for new insurance products and new ways to create and consummate insurance transactions.
The presentation will explore – briefly – examples of new insurance products and doors being opened by technological advances to new and exciting opportunities within the insurance industry. It will consider too the legal challenges in this evolving landscape.
Topics to be traversed include usage based and on-demand insurance, embedded insurance, parametric insurance and the insurance of autonomous vehicles.
This convergence of new technologies and consumer demands is creating new and exciting opportunities within the insurance industry, but also complex challenges including determination of liability for harm or damage, privacy considerations, cyber security risks and insurer solvency.
Actual and prospective impacts upon insurance law and practice, serve to highlight opportunities and risks in navigating the changing or changed landscape.
For example, privacy concerns may be exacerbated as greater access to insured’s data and activities raises the risks of a data breach, misuse and fraud, including obtaining unauthorised knowledge about facets of consumers ́ lives, including sensitive data concerning the customer’s health, location, or financial status. Accordingly, regulators will have to carefully consider issues pertaining to the use, access and sharing of such sensitive insurance-related information.
Important – For admittance to Lloyd’s, please make sure to bring along your Lloyd’s pass if you have one or photo ID (driving licence, passport or work ID with company logo and full name).
REGISTRATION FOR THIS EVENT IS NOW CLOSED
This session will provide a timely update on reinsurance cases, examining emerging themes and key decisions shaping the market.
The lecture will be delivered by Adam Strong and Rupert Warren, both highly regarded practitioners in insurance and reinsurance disputes. Adam brings extensive experience across complex insurance and reinsurance arbitrations, international arbitration, and appellate litigation, and is consistently recognised by Legal 500 for his technical ability and strategic insight. Rupert is well known for his work on high-profile insurance and reinsurance claims, including brokers’ negligence and non-disclosure, and is praised for his strong technical knowledge, judgement and market understanding.
This promises to be a valuable and practical update for anyone working in insurance, reinsurance, or related disputes.
SPEAKERS
ADAM STRONG
Adam specialises in dispute resolution in the insurance and reinsurance sector. Adam also has significant experience of commercial and investor/state international arbitration. He has acted in arbitrations under a number of the common institutional rules including ICSID, ICC, ARIAS, UNCITRAL and LCIA. Adam has higher rights of audience and his court experience includes a number of cases that have progressed to the Court of Appeal. He also has experience of asset preservation and freezing orders.
Adam’s insurance experience encompasses a number of classes of business including financial institutions, professional indemnity, product liability, warranty and indemnity, cyber, and commercial general liability. His reinsurance experience is equally extensive and, in particular, includes advising clients on disputes involving some of the more unusual hybrid reinsurance/capital markets products.
In addition to his contentious work Adam regularly advises his clients on the drafting of new product offerings, reinsurance treaty wordings and binding authority agreements. Adam’s international arbitration experience includes acting for investors in claims against sovereign states and defending sovereign states against investor claims. His commercial arbitration experience is wide ranging and has encompassed disputes in Europe, Africa, USA, Bermuda, the Middle East and SE Asia.
Rupert specialises in insurance, reinsurance and professional indemnity claims. He frequently acts for insurers, reinsurers, policyholders and insured professionals in claims arising from a wide range of classes of business, including professional indemnity, management liability, financial institutions property / business interruption, energy, product liability and construction. His cases often have an international element. He has been involved in some of the leading cases on, for example, brokers’ negligence and non-disclosure in reinsurance.
Rupert has spent time on secondment in the claims teams of two Lloyd’s syndicate, through which he has developed a thorough understanding of the insurance market. He is a member of the Insurance and Reinsurance Legacy Association (“IRLA”) and the British Insurance Law Association (“BILA”). He regularly presents to clients on topical market issues.
Date 27 January 2027
Time 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
British Insurance Law Association Young Professionals (BILA YP) are excited to announce our winter quiz.
Awake your brain from its hibernation and come test your knowledge against fellow London Insurance Market peers.
When: 22 January 2026
Where: Marsh, Tower Place East, Tower Place, London EC3R 5BU
Time: Doors Open at 17:30, Quiz starts at 18:00
Quiz finish time 20:00, followed by networking until 21:00
Cost: £10 per person or £50 for a table of 6
Important notes
Please ensure you bring ID with you – driving licence, passport, Work ID with company logo and full name.
Refunds will not be issued after 5.00 pm on 19 January, however tickets are transferable providing you inform office@bila.org.uk prior to 10.00 am on 22 January 2026.
Event Sponsor:
Marsh the world’s top insurance broker and risk advisor. For more information, visit marsh.com, or follow on LinkedInand X
Booking for this event has now closed.
We look forward to welcoming everyone who has registered!
IN-PERSON EVENT – REGISTRATION FOR THIS EVENT HAS NOW CLOSED
James Davey, who has just finished his successful term as BILA’s President, is well known to BILA members and audiences for his informative, thought-provoking and entertaining lectures. He will be delivering this year’s BILA Annual Update, a study and assessment of key developments in insurance law during the past twelve months.
Speaker
Professor James Davey, University of Bristol Law School
(President of BILA – November 2023 to November 2025)
In-person event
Date: 5 November
Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Lloyd’s Old Library
We are pleased to invite you to an in-person lecture at Lloyd’s Old Library on Wednesday, 5 November at 1:00 PM. Jeremiah Welch and Will Bennett of Saxe Doernberger & Vita P.C. will explore the recent Archer Western v. ACE American Insurance Co. decision and its implications for LEG3 coverage interpretation under U.S. law. They will analyse how the court’s reasoning, influenced by SCB, redefines “physical damage,” clarifies ambiguity surrounding “improvement” in LEG3 provisions, and contrasts U.S. and U.K. treatment of manufacturing and contamination claims. The session will offer essential takeaways for insurers, brokers, and construction professionals engaging with cross-jurisdictional coverage disputes.
Speakers:
Jeremiah Welch
Managing Partner, SDV West Coast
Jeremiah represents many of the ENR Top 20 construction contractors, advising on and litigating insurance claims arising from heavy civil, industrial, and commercial construction projects. His work involves complex coverage issues across builder’s risk, liability, pollution, and default insurance. Jeremiah has played key roles in major construction disaster litigations, including the Florida University bridge collapse, the Louisiana Hard Rock Hotel collapse, and the San Francisco Millennium Tower case. He is also a trusted advisor to leading insurance brokerages and a frequent national speaker.
Will Bennett
Partner, SDV
Will maintains a nationwide litigation practice focusing on complex insurance recovery actions. Admitted in California, Connecticut, and New York, he frequently leads cases from initial strategy through trial and appeal. His experience spans construction catastrophe, defect, real estate, and pollution liability disputes. Will is widely recognised by national insurance brokerages for his expertise and regularly presents at industry conferences.
We hope you will join us for what promises to be a highly informative and thought-provoking session.
BOOKING FOR THIS EVENT IS NOW CLOSED