Willkie’s Insurance Transactional and Regulatory Practice is recognized for its deep experience and dedication to serving the insurance industry. Our multidisciplinary team, ranked Band 1 by both Chambers and Legal 500, provides counsel and strategic advice on matters affecting the industry in the areas of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), capital markets, disclosure, governance, structured finance, reinsurance, insurance regulatory, registered products, litigation and tax. As an integrated insurance transactional and regulatory practice, Willkie advises a broad spectrum of industry participants, including life and property-casualty insurers and reinsurers, financial guaranty and mortgage insurers, private equity investors, insurance sector-focused funds and investment and commercial banks.
Our lawyers have been involved in many of the industry’s most significant transactions, serving as M&A, corporate, securities and regulatory counsel to the world’s largest life and property-casualty insurers. We provide a full portfolio of structured insurance solutions to our clients. Our insurance-linked securities (ILS) practice assists clients in a broad array of ILS and ILS-related matters, including embedded value securitizations, catastrophe bonds, sidecars, contingent capital transactions, mortality bonds and swaps, longevity transactions and Regulation XXX and AXXX solutions, as well as in the formation and representation of ILS-dedicated investment funds.
M&A Advice to the Insurance Industry
Representing the largest life and property-casualty insurers in the industry, our attorneys have handled numerous sophisticated domestic and cross-border transactions. We advise domestic and global insurance companies, private equity funds and investment banks on M&A, loss portfolio transfers and other acquisition and disposition transactions structured as reinsurance. Willkie’s unique understanding of the regulatory nuances of effecting insurance mergers and acquisitions on a global basis, together with our deep understanding of the industry and its participants, enhances our ability to provide integrated advice in insurance M&A at the highest level.
Structured Insurance Solutions
As a market leader in the area of issuance and development of insurance-linked securities, our attorneys have advised on more than 30 property-casualty and extreme mortality catastrophe bond offerings. The high level of talent and experience our team delivers as deal counsel on insurance-sponsored offerings has distinguished Willkie as the "go-to" firm for complex ILS matters, including catastrophe bond offerings, sidecar transactions and ILS fund formations.
Attorneys in our Corporate Insurance and Regulatory Group have also been at the forefront in structuring Regulation XXX and AXXX reserve and embedded value securitizations, including:
- acting as transaction counsel in the very first Regulation XXX and AXXX reserve transactions, in the largest such transaction;
- advising on the first embedded value securitization for disability insurance; and,
- providing counsel on the first offering of unwrapped tranches of Regulation XXX reserve securitizations.
Our team served as transaction counsel and assisted in providing numerous structured letter of credit and bank financing transactions billions of dollars of redundant reserve financing.
Insurance Capital Markets
As leaders in the field of insurance capital markets, our attorneys have represented many of the industry’s most active issuers and underwriters and have advised on hundreds of insurance securities offerings. Our understanding of the intersections of regulatory capital, rating agency capital adequacy criteria and capital markets structures distinguishes Willkie as a preeminent firm for complex insurance financing advice. Our attorneys have significant experience in advising on the structuring and development of large, sophisticated securities structures that include innovative hybrid capital securities, surplus notes and preferred and preference shares, as well as more conventional debt and equity securities.
