Insurance & Risk
Finalist, Insurance Specialist Law Firm of the Year, Australasian Law Awards 2007
Pragmatic, strategic approach
Sparke Helmore is one of only a few national firms with an ongoing strategic commitment to the insurance industry. One of Australia's largest suppliers of legal services to the insurance sector, the combined national resources of the Insurance Group total 23 partners, 13 special counsel, and 157 lawyers.
In a heavily regulated market, marked by frequently changing legislation and increasing consolidation, our clients require a legal provider that delivers proactive advice and comprehensive coverage both in terms of geography and services.
Our ability to offer a national multi-disciplinary team of experts who know the law, our clients' businesses, and the insurance sector is the good reason our clients have chosen to partner with us for decades.
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Expertise
Sparke Helmore's national insurance practice helps clients manage claims, implement management systems and to identify and minimise potential risk.
Our comprehensive, progressive services and products are delivered by professionals with specialised technical expertise and hands-on practical experience. We also protect our clients' interests at inquiries by government regulators and coroners, ensuring that risks arising from potential criminal and civil action are minimised.
Our team has an established track record of demonstrated expertise in dust diseases litigation, having defended cases for some of Australia's largest corporations. We have successfully acted for defendants in a number of jurisdictions, including in the New South Wales Dust Diseases Tribunal, the Supreme Court of Victoria and in the District Court of Queensland.
We have been chosen to defend cases for some of Australia's largest corporations, as well as representing and advising specialised and general insurers on dust diseases and other toxic torts, on behalf of defendant companies.
In addition to handling existing claims, we also work with companies to understand their potential liabilities and to implement strategies designed to reduce their future risk.
We are one of the largest and longest standing providers of CTP services in Australia and the only firm that offers comprehensive national coverage. For more than 16 years, we have acted for Australia's largest compulsory third party insurers.
We have a large group of practitioners specialising in the defence of catastrophic personal injury claims involving multi-million dollar damages estimates. In addition to providing detailed analysis of complex forensic medical evidence, our specialist team adopts a collaborative approach with our clients' claims team and rehabilitation advisers to ensure consistency in decisions regarding treatment, rehabilitation and attendant care issues.
We have assembled some of the best and brightest professional indemnity and D&O lawyers in the country. In addition to being excellent technicians, our lawyers are creative, lateral thinkers. We win the cases we contest, and we obtain outstanding results in those that should not be contested.
Team members have been involved in most major D&O cases in New South Wales in recent years. We also have an outstanding track record in defending a wide range of professionals in negligence and medical malpractice claims.
Our services cover occupiers liability, product liability, school leisure and sporting facilities, policy wording and drafting, recoveries and marine insurance.
We represent a diverse range of clients in relation to property claims including public and private sector owners of infrastructure in industries such as water, transport, energy and telecommunications.
Sparke Helmore has a unique depth of national expertise across a range of personal injury schemes.
We are one of Australia's pre-eminent firms in volume claims management.
Enabled by technology which ensures responsiveness, quality and consistency, we adopt a strategic approach to claims management focused on pro-activity, efficiency and cost effectiveness.
Track record
- Defended GIO's former chief financial officer in civil penalty proceedings brought by ASIC. This was a landmark action, as it was one of the first times ASIC elected to pursue corporate officers below board level for decisions taken in the course of their employment.
- Acted for the former chief executive of New Cap Re. These proceedings were brought by a group of investors in relation to a capital raising exercise carried out by the company in 1998 and 1999.
- We succeeded in the High Court in the defence of a school in a claim for personal injury damages by a student injured at a recreational camp. The decision is a leading authority in relation to the elements and nature of the duty of care owed to children by educational institutions.
- Collaborating in the representation of the interests of a major insurer in relation to professional indemnity claims against a number of its financial planning insureds arising out of the collapse of the Westpoint group.
- Represented clients from a variety of industries - including the medical profession, mining, local government and the rail industry - in inquiries by various government bodies, including the Coroner's Office, following fatalities and catastrophic accidents.
- Successfully run several cases involving issues of strategic scheme significance centred on the extent of coverage of a CTP policy in relation to workplace accidents. We successfully represented the appellant in the High Court in Nominal Defendant v GLG Australia Pty Limited. The matter related to the obligation of a CTP insurer to indemnify a claim arising out of an unsafe system of work. The High Court determined that the CTP policy would not respond to a claim relating to a vehicle used within an inherently unsafe system of work.
