Insurance

A judge has struck out an allegation by the builder of Sydney’s Opal Tower that insurer Liberty Mutual breached its duty of good faith and has warned Icon to carefully consider whether to re-plead the claim.

A Gadens-led class action against former Quintis director Frank Wilson has settled, but a second class action filed by a rival firm has flagged a potential claim on the settlement funds over a cause of action said to have been “picked up parasitically”. 

Experts say the chaos of last month’s CrowdStrike outage is likely to spark a flurry of litigation both overseas and at home, including class actions, but lawyers bringing the claims will face significant hurdles.

The builder of Sydney’s troubled Opal Tower has brought a claim for indemnity against insurer Liberty Mutual, which has already agreed to pay out $22.5 million, claiming it is owed a total of $12.5 million for its costs in defending a class action by residents. 

Four insurers have argued that class actions over alleged business interruption losses during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic should be de-classed, with one insurer saying group members cannot “go behind” a Full Court decision denying coverage for certain policyholders.

UK law firm DWF has acquired Melbourne claims management business Proclaim, expanding its insurance business in Australia. 

Medibank failed to put in place baseline security measures, including multi-factor authentication, to safeguard sensitive information from a hacker in 2022, who stole an IT contractor’s credentials and logged in to the health insurer’s private network three months before the company learned its data was compromised, the OAIC says.

Gilchrist Connell is growing its national insurance practice, nabbing three litigation experts from rival firm Colin Biggers and Paisley for its Sydney office. 

A judge has raised concerns about bids to declass group proceedings over alleged business interruption losses during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the thousands of policyholders who registered for the class actions might reap more from the cases than making claims directly with their insurers.

Global insurance law firm Clyde & Co has shown six of its partners in Australia the door and will create a new salaried partner position to cope with high competition in insurance law, with the partnership having decreased by a third in the last 18 months.