Every so often, something crosses my desk that stops me mid-sentence. Recently, an attorney on a professional listserv wrote to me, frustrated and incredulous:
“We are reaching out for information about formal and informal claims handling manuals, guidelines, or other materials from our good friends at Chubb/ACE Insurance for an ongoing coverage and discovery dispute. Chubb/ACE is taking the position in our case that the only claims-handling guidance that exists is a 7-page ‘Best Practices’ pamphlet.”
A seven-page pamphlet. That’s the sum total of claims wisdom supposedly governing one of the world’s largest, most sophisticated insurers.
Let’s call that what it is: ludicrous.
Chubb and its predecessor, ACE, have claims operations spanning continents, with specialized units handling property, financial lines, catastrophe, and complex coverage litigation. They employ claims examiners, technical specialists, and trainers across hubs from Jersey City to Philadelphia and Irvine. The company is actively hiring an AVP, Claim Trainer in California and an AVP, Claim – Coverage & Complex in New Jersey—roles that involve preparing training materials, presenting to senior management, and developing litigation and resolution strategies. Another posting describes a Vice President, Learning & Development, Claim Center. This is a position responsible for training and developing Chubb’s North American claims professionals. Are the insurance company attorneys going to suggest that the training and procedures are passed down by word of mouth?
Yet, in discovery, Chubb’s counsel is apparently telling courts that all of this structure—the learning departments, trainer positions, best-practice centers—boils down to seven pages of “guidance.” It’s an argument so strained it could snap a guitar string.
From a practical standpoint, no modern insurer could function without detailed claims procedures. Regulators, reinsurers, and auditors require documented standards of performance. Market conduct exams routinely review “claims systems, procedures, and guidelines.” To pretend otherwise is not only implausible. Instead, it borders on misrepresentation if told to a judge. I am not certain exactly what was told to the judge, but just reporting on a colleague’s request for help.
It’s also an ethical problem. Any experienced insurance defense attorney knows that their client has written claims standards, training programs, and operational manuals. To suggest they don’t exist at all invites questions about candor and professional integrity. Lawyers can argue privilege, confidentiality, or scope. But arguing nonexistence, when the evidence of existence is publicly posted on the company’s own careers page, is a bridge too far.
This kind of litigation posture erodes trust and delays justice. Discovery fights like these aren’t about whether a document exists. They’re about whether the truth can survive corporate discomfort. If insurers want to boast about their world-class claims teams in job postings, they should be ready to admit in court that those teams are trained from something more substantial than a pamphlet.
For what it is worth, I am not trying to scold Chubb about this. Chubb is winning my “fairest paying insurance company” survey, which I have been asking for feedback on while giving my last several speeches. I doubt that they are winning because they only have a 7-page guide for how to handle claims.
I am trying to bring to light a recurrent problem: insurers and their defense counsel trying to hide and misrepresent the extent of training materials and even claims handling directives purposely not placed in manuals. Most large insurance companies have training departments with thousands of pages of procedures. Most also have hundreds of claims handling instructions on a regional and team basis that do not find their way into manuals. I suspect that those are often not deeply searched for when hard-nosed policyholder attorneys request them.
Thought for the Day
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
— Aldous Huxley