What we do
Problem Solving
Insurance allocation • Forecasting
Claim file review • Database audits • Sample design
Expert • Regulatory • Due diligence • Settlement support
Mass Torts
Asbestos • Coal dust
Abuse • Mass casualty • Opioids
MTBE • PFAS • Pollution • Natural disaster
HighRock specializes in resolving data and modeling challenges for policyholders and insurers. We are most often retained to estimate the expenditure stemming from environmental or product liabilities and to model how that expenditure will be allocated to insurance policies. Our work is done in litigation, settlement support, and regulatory proceedings.
Founders Adam Finn and Ben Mermelstein have 25 years of experience working with policyholders and insurance companies to help resolve mass torts. Adam and Ben are rigorous but pragmatic. Their combination of academic training and consulting experience helps them perform high-quality work on time and on budget, and ultimately to provide superior value to their clients. They are at the cutting edge of the industry in terms of technical ability but also collaborate effectively with stakeholders of varying backgrounds.
Litigation
HighRock’s leadership has a unique blend of industry and consulting experience paired with top academic and professional credentials. We can leverage our deep expertise to tell your story completely and persuasively. HighRock prepares expert reports for both insurers and policyholders.
Settlement
Sometimes the most effective approach to litigation is to avoid it. Or if you decide litigation is a must, you want to know in advance how your arguments affect the client’s bottom line so you can prioritize your resources and your audience’s time. HighRock will guide you to a favorable resolution or prepare you for battle.
Regulatory
HighRock values liabilities and related insurance assets for financial reporting purposes to the Securities and Exchange Commission. We also perform due diligence as part of potential acquisition and divestiture transactions.
Representative projects
Coverage litigation risk assessment model
An industrial manufacturing company declares bankruptcy due to liabilities relating to asbestos personal injury claims. One of the policyholder’s excess insurers engages us to understand their potential exposure. We build coverage litigation risk assessment models to value hundreds of distinct scenarios relating to occurrence definition, primary policy limits, and settlement trust values. Our client uses this understanding to know how best to use their available leverage in bankruptcy proceedings. Ultimately, the excess insurer is able to avoid rulings that would cause significant liability to escape the primary layer.
PFAS contamination and bodily injury expert report
A leading U.S. chemical company is being sued for environmental contamination and bodily injury stemming from its use of PFAS. The policyholder engages us to help value their potential liability and corresponding insurance recoveries. We perform a scenario analysis for key drivers of this nascent tort and engage with a joint defense group to negotiate a global coverage in place agreement. When those efforts stall, we prepare an expert report that demonstrates the losses are covered by some or all of the carriers under any reasonable assessment of the coverage environment. By understanding the issues that drive money for this client, we strengthen their arguments on these key issues.
Renegotiation of unfavorable CIP
Insurers for a respirator manufacturer have long been operating under a coverage-in-place agreement (CIP). One insurer engages us as it is considering exiting the agreement that may have become unfavorable with the passage of time. We analyze historic claim filings and expenditure data through a sampling and claim file audit exercise to show that the insurer is paying an outsized portion of defense costs given its relative share of indemnity payments. Our client presents these findings to the other insurers and is able to renegotiate a new CIP with more representative defense shares and a clause to adjust these shares in the future as the Date of First Exposure distributions continue to change.