The members of Pietragallo’s Risk Management Group bring a multi-faceted approach to issues that confront nearly every company.  Our group is comprised of individuals who have expertise in the fields of insurance coverage, casualty litigation (CGL, auto and workers’ compensation), employment corporate law, and captives.

The group’s knowledge and expertise has effectively reduced the cost of risk for our clients in the manufacturing, transportation, construction, and health industries.  Unique to the group is that it offers a guarantee of benefit to our clients.

What We Do

The Risk Management Group works with clients in those industries where risk of loss is a major cost component for the clients’ operations and where effective claim management improves financial performances and outcomes.  Many of the services that our firm members provide are designed to prevent litigation.

In other instances, our group has designed and implemented customized litigation strategies that serve to mitigate our clients’ exposures once losses occur, designed to prevent small claims from becoming large and large claims from becoming catastrophic.

The Risk Management Group counsels employers on how each can reduce exposures in the setting of employment liability, including, but not limited to, discrimination, privacy and monitoring issues, wage and hour disputes, and firing policies.  We assist our clients with the creation and modification of employee manuals and personnel policies, all designed to reduce the threat of litigation and the costs associated therewith.

Our group has made Pietragallo the “go-to” firm with respect to premium disputes for insureds and policyholders alike.

Areas in which our group excels include:

• Insurance coverage and analysis;
• Creation, implementation and oversight of “Best Practices” to be employed by the client and our client’s vendors, including insurers, third party administrators, brokers and lawyers;
• Assessment of the viability of portfolio liability transfers for clients who are acquiring or selling companies;
• Training of employers to reduce employment and corporate liability exposures;
• Management and oversight of run-off programs;
• Premium dispute litigation;
• Class code litigation;
• Collateral disputes;
• Insurers’ errors and omissions litigation;
• Commercial disputes involving contract interpretations;
• Insurer insolvency proceedings;
• Assistance in the creation and management of captives.

Workers’ Compensation

Members of the Risk Management Group have been called upon by Rating Bureaus to analyze risk exposures for employers in an array of industries, and have served as experts for various Rating Bureaus.

The group has worked with employers to reduce their experience modification factors, which, in turn, has led to lower premium costs.

The group has successfully litigated class code disputes, resulting in the reduction of premium cost, and in some instances has been called upon to design new class codes that more properly defined the client’s risk profile.

Alternative Risk

Members of the Risk Management Group have educated clients on their role that allows the client to take on greater risk to avoid the unwarranted expenses associated with risk transfer that should be retained by the client.  This includes the formation and co-management of captives.

The Role in Acquisitions and Divestitures

Our Risk Management Group has been called upon by major corporations to assess financial risks associated with the absorption of another’s current and future liability exposures through acquisition.  Further, the group has been called upon to assist a selling corporation on the issue as to whether the seller should retain its casualty liability at the time of sale.

Our Program Oversight

The Risk Management Group is routinely called upon by industry to manage, through oversight, its litigation on a country-wide basis through the implementation of Best Practices and the hiring of Best in Class vendors (insurers, third party administrators, brokers and lawyers) that have a proven track record of demonstrating expertise and mitigating losses for our clients.  The work in this area is guaranteed to create a value for our clients, such that no client is at risk for fees that do not yield a benefit.