Insurance litigation: for policyholders

Stewarts Law LLP

Client Satisfaction

Stewarts Law LLP’s litigation-only policyholder disputes practice focuses solely on high-value and complex coverage disputes for policyholders, combining ‘true deep technical expertise and commercial understanding’ to achieve its reputation as heavyweight policyholder advocates, particularly in the COVID-19-related business interruption sphere. The practice is bolstered by its experienced and dedicated team of insurance coverage experts led by ’outstanding’ Aaron Le Marquer, who, alongside extensive COVID-19-related business interruption work, is experienced in all lines of commercial insurance, with a particular focus on high-value and complex disputes, often with a cross-border element. Chloe Derrick has a wealth of experience in a broad range of insurance coverage disputes, with strong multi-jurisdiction experience. The practice benefits from the recent promotion of James Breese to partner, who has acted on a number of business interruption cases and significant political risk insurance disputes.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

‘Stewart's policyholders' insurance practice team is excellent. The team is on top of all cutting-edge areas of the law and provides clients with the support needed to bring about a positive outcome.’
'James Breese is fantastic. He is on-the-ball, user-friendly, incisive in his advice and excellent in client handling.’
‘Chloe Derrick at Stewarts has been particularly impressive. She listened to our wishes and made sure she came up with a very commercial strategy that involved incremental steps while preserving all our options.’
‘Combination of true deep technical expertise and commercial understanding.'
‘Aaron Le Marquer is outstanding on all fronts. Extremely bright, brilliant on the law and even better on the tactics. Totally unflappable and rightly hugely popular with clients.'
‘Stewart's insurance team is one of the leading policyholder teams in the country.’
‘Incredibly strong and technical policyholder disputes team. People are user-friendly and fight hard to do the best for their clients.’
‘Aaron Le Marquer has created a new insurance law offering in Stewarts, and his success can be measured not just in terms of the leading cases he has won in court but also in the growing size of his team. There is no other firm that is better at policy interpretation.’

Key clients

London International Exhibition Centre plc
Liberty Retail
Glyndebourne Opera
Danny Gordon
Arena Racing
Covid-19 Claims Portal

Work highlights

Acting for the London International Exhibition Centre in its Covid-19 BI test case claim on causation in ‘at the premises’ disease clauses.
Representing Liberty Retail in Covid-19 BI dispute over whether coverage is triggered at all under the Prevention of Access clause in Liberty Mutual’s proprietary wording.
Representing a group of 22 UK racecourses in their Covid-19 BI claim against Liberty Mutual, Allianz and Aviva.