Conner & Winters combines its solid understanding of our clients’ industries with its broad insurance background to provide considered and effective insurance guidance.  The firm has assisted clients in developing, structuring, implementing, and maintaining major corporate insurance programs involving both self-insurance and public insurance, particularly in the vehicle rental, pipeline, and construction businesses.  We have actually drafted industry-specific insurance policies and policy provisions.  We have performed insurance audits and assessments, helping our clients to fully comprehend and manage their insurable risks.

Our attorneys are routinely asked to interpret and analyze a wide array of insurance products, including property and casualty policies, commercial general liability policies, professional liability policies, bankers bonds, performance bonds, trade credit policies, directors and officers, employment and ERISA fiduciary policies, and life and health insurance policies.   We have additionally developed a subspecialty in dealing with pollution exclusion issues.  In many instances, we can negotiate complex coverage issues and help create a partnership of common interest between the insured and its insurer.  For example, the firm’s attorneys served as coverage counsel regarding directors and officers and ERISA fiduciary insurance in the largest securities and ERISA class actions ever filed in the Northern District of Oklahoma, and all coverage disputes were successfully resolved without litigation. We have also participated in alternative dispute resolution processes, including mediation and arbitration, and have negotiated settlements of extremely large property claims between clients and their property insurance carriers, involving eight and nine figure settlements. 

We provide quality legal services for both insurance carriers and policyholders.  While some firms specialize in one or the other, we find that having a wider perspective gives us the ability to be innovative while providing practical solutions.  We have represented clients in wide-ranging insurance disputes including directors’ and officers’ liability claims, securities violation claims, toxic tort and environmental issues, energy-related claims, claims related to the vehicle rental industry, the health care industry, the construction industry, and others.  We also have specific expertise in assisting and counseling clients with regard to the complicated area of Oklahoma Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist law.

The firm’s representative experience includes:

• Counseling major corporations in the development of innovative insurance and self-insurance programs
• Drafting and negotiating manuscript insurance policies and endorsements to policies
• Drafting self-insurance programs and various security devices, such as bonds and letters of credit
• Negotiating and drafting national claims handling programs and agreements with national claims adjusting companies
• Counseling and overseeing national claims handling programs
• Developing emergency response procedures for catastrophic or major casualties
• Providing insurance coverage advice and assessments to multinational corporations
• Handling of large property damage claims arising out of hurricanes and other windstorm events in and around the Gulf of Mexico
• Handling of undersea pipeline property damage claims, including:
• Anchor drag damages
• Undersea valve failures
• Formation of hydrates in undersea pipelines
• Pipeline leaks

• Handling of property and business interruption claims arising from an olefins plant fire resulting in massive property damage
• Handling of coverage issues arising out of a piping failure and catastrophic plant shutdown
• Handling of insurance coverage issues resulting out of environmental liability arising out of product leaks at refinery

Our insurance attorneys regularly rely on the resources of the entire firm in providing a full range of legal services, including in the areas of corporate and securities, labor and employment, real estate, employee benefits, litigation, and bankruptcy and business reorganization.