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PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS STUDENTS ALUMNI/AE LIBRARY FACULTY ACADEMICS

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Course Listing

Admiralty Law and Marine Insurance

Admiralty Law and Marine Insurance studies the jurisdiction of Courts of Admiralty in the United States, the Jones Act, carriage of goods, general and particular average, the basic principles of marine insurance and related topics.

Alternatives to Managing Risk

This seminar will explore legal and financial issues arising in the alternative insurance markets, emphasizing emerging issues including terrorism coverage, finite risk and coverage for catastrophic exposures. Traditional insurance products have lost market share to alternative risk vehicles as market and regulatory forces push risk-bearers toward new ways to transfer and spread risk. At the same time, international terrorism and increasing losses due to natural catastrophes threaten the solvency of conventional insurance markets. Together, these forces drive a convergence of banking, finance and insurance, and therefore the emergence of significant legal issues.

Economics of Insurance

Is a survey of the economics of insurance, with a special emphasis on empirical analysis of legal and policy issues. Broad issues to be covered include the basic economics of risk and the demand for insurance (what do we do choose to insure against and why); moral hazard and adverse selection in insurance markets, and strategies to deal with these problems; the economics of insurance for large risks (recessions, earthquakes, etc.); and the economics of social programs such as unemployment insurance. In addition to these broad issues, the course will also consider a number of special topics to which economics may have something useful to contribute, such as the uninsured motorist problem; per-mile pricing as an alternative for rate structure for automobile insurance; the control of discretion by insurance agents; optimum health insurance benefits, and the efficiency of tort liability insurance. The course assumes no prior background in economics or finance, but high school algebra and some comfort with numbers are important assets.

Ethics of Insurance

This seminar employs a comparative perspective to address selected topics in insurance that raise significant ethical issues. The seminar begins by identifying ethics as a way of addressing questions of power and identifying the power relationships in insurance. The seminar then addresses those power relationships in the following contexts: risk classification, privacy, insurance sales, compliance, and insurance company governance. The jurisdictions compared include the United States, France, and the European Union.

Executive and Professional Liability Insurance

This course examines the lines of insurance developed to protect executives of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, as well as professionals ranging from lawyers to journalists. These include Directors & Officers, Errors & Omissions, Employment Practices Liability, Fiduciary Liability, Media Liability, and Crime insurance. The course takes a practical look at these coverages, focusing on the key policy provisions and legal principles that every lawyer should be familiar with in today's litigious environment.

Government Regulation of Employee Benefits

This course will examine in depth the Federal Government's promotion and regulation of employee benefits programs. These programs represent for the American worker one of his or her most valuable assets, for American business one of its most significant costs of doing business, and for Wall Street one of the largest sources of private capital. We will focus on both pension plans (with a particular emphasis on the popular 401(k) program) and welfare programs (such as medical and dependent care). We will study applicable sections of the Internal Revenue Code and the Employer Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Some of the major topics we will cover include: tax qualified pension plans; the concept of vesting; government imposed non-discrimination tests; taxation of distributions from qualified plans; IRAs and Roth IRAs; executive compensation; medical plans and cafeteria plans (including FSAs and HSAs); ERISA preemption of state law; fiduciary responsibility and prohibited transactions; investment of plan assets; and ERISA litigation. We will emphasize where possible topics of current interest, such as the Enron 401(k) Plan debacle and the government's reaction, proposed changes to the Social Security system and the medical care cost crisis. Because the subject matter cuts across many different areas of the law, the course will touch on many different legal specialties. While a knowledge of tax concepts is helpful, there are no prerequisites for this course.

Health Care Policy and the Law

This seminar course deals with selected public policy and regulatory issues relating to the accessibility and affordability of health care in the United States and how the law often impedes and facilitates these objectives. The course will also explore alternate ways to accomplish desired objectives drawing upon the experience in Canada, Great Britain, France and Germany. Each student will undertake a research paper on a health care topic mutually agreed upon by the instructor and the student.

Insurance Finance

This course examines the principles and institutions of insurance finance, together with the legal regulation of the financial activities of insurance institutions. Principles of Insurance (675) must be taken prior to or concurrently with this course.

Insurance Litigation

Parties to insurance disputes increasingly resort to litigation. This course examines a variety of cases and issues, many of them on the front pages of today's papers. It will look at insurance-related litigation stemming from the destruction of the World Trade Center, the high-profile investigations of brokers and insurers, and the asbestos liability crisis. The course will also examine recent judicial decisions affecting property casualty insurance, both personal lines and commercial, as well as reinsurance disputes. There will be class exercises and a final exam. Pre-Requisite of Principles of Insurance.

Insurance Regulation

This course presents a topical and historical overview of insurance regulation, with an emphasis on the economic and social underpinnings of insurance institutions and the problems presented by the dominance of state level regulation of a multi-national industry.

Insurance Solvency

This course examines the regulatory, legal, and market forces governing the solvency of insurance companies. The course studies various regulatory tools used to assure solvency, including financial examination, risk-based capital, and rating agency and company monitoring. The course explores the solvency process, including financial monitoring, rehabilitation, and liquidation. The legal rights and obligations of various stakeholders, including policyholders, creditors, reinsurers, guaranty funds, taxpayers, and shareholders, are analyzed. The course reviews applicable statutes as well as case law developed as a result of the various insolvencies that have occurred. An examination and a short paper are required.

Insurance Taxation

This course surveys the federal and state taxation of insurance institutions as well as the provisions and principles of the federal income tax as they relate to the taxation of individuals who purchase insurance products and services.

Introduction to the London Insurance Market

This one week course that meets in London during Spring Break and offers a tour of, and lectures on, the London insurance market and the UK legal system. The class will meet with a variety of lecturers, such as representatives of Lloyd's and Equitas, brokers, insurance regulators, insolvency practitioners and academics. Topics to be covered include the structure and history of the UK legal system and current issues in insurance law. There will be a writing requirement. The class is offered for one credit pass/fail, with an option to obtain an additional credit if the student writes a paper before the end of the spring term (in which case the entire two credits will be graded). See the March 2007 program.

Liability Insurance

This course provides a detailed examination of the legal principles associated with liability insurance, with major emphasis on commercial general liability, homeowners, commercial and private auto, and umbrella/excess coverage. The course will focus on several subtopics within these areas, such as environmental impairment liability, coverage for intellectual property claims and employment liability, insurer use of litigation management guidelines, and common exclusions to coverage, such as 'intentional acts'. The course will also examine the varying perspectives of the interested parties to an insurance liability dispute, as well as the tactics these parties utilize to maximize or minimize insurance payouts. Note: This will be an entirely online class and there will be no scheduled class meetings aside from an introductory session at the beginning of the term. The course is offered for 3 credits and will follow the Law School's 14-week format. Assigned readings will be similar to those in other insurance law classes. Instead of a final exam or live class meetings or discussions, students will complete a number of short written exercises and through the use of TWEN's discussion forum, engage in substantive discussions on the readings and class exercises. The final project will be drafting a judicial opinion on a current liability insurance dispute.

Life Insurance/Health Care Finance

This course reviews the economics, legal and regulatory principles of individual life and group health and accident insurance. The course examines the similarities and differences between individual and group coverage with respect to key insurance concepts (e.g., insurable interest, anti-selection, and moral hazard), coverage provisions and limitations of each type of insurance (e.g., incontestability, medical necessity, experimental treatment and coordination of benefits), coverage defenses (e.g., misrepresentation, incontestability), regulatory priorities (e.g., disclosure, permitted groups, solvency, and rating options such as community rating), and the relationship of these private coverages to various public insurance programs (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Disability). The course will trace the evolution of traditional health insurance from passive indemnity financing to managed care, the transition from experience-rating to self-insurance and regulatory and judicial and regulatory responses to these changes (e.g., ERISA, DOJ/FTC Provider Network Antitrust Guidelines and State Utilization Review regulation). The remedies available to consumers, employees and health care providers in today's changing health care environment will also be considered.

Principles of Insurance

This course is a study of the legal principles applicable to the contract of insurance and to the state regulation of insurance. These principles are examined in the light of their institutional setting. Legal and non-legal material is utilized in this course. Topics studied include: formation of a contract; insurable interest; premiums; construction of life, property, accident, liability, and group contracts; concealments; warranties; conditions; exceptions; waiver; estoppel. This course also covers the propriety of federal regulation concentrating on the areas of national health care, no fault, and pension reform.

Principles of Reinsurance

This course covers the basic institutions and principles of reinsurance, together with an examination of the legal regulation of reinsurance, procedures developed for the resolution of reinsurance disputes, and problems related to reinsurance insolvency. Principles of Insurance must be taken prior to or concurrently with this course.

Property Insurance

In this course, students will learn the fundamentals of first party property insurance. Topics to be covered include the concepts of fortuity, policy language and its evolution, business interruption coverage, and the handling of suspicious claims, and bad faith.

Regulation of Financial Institutions

Financial institutions (e.g. commercial and investment banks, insurance companies, pension plans, securities firms and mutual funds) are in the midst of profound change driven in large part by an increasingly inter-dependent global economy, changing demographics, advances in information and communication technology and the changing needs of commerce. This course provides a broad survey of the different regulatory structures for these seemingly unrelated financial activities and the underlying policy justification for each approach. It will also examine how the world's rapidly changing economic environment is forcing the convergence and integration of these financial institutions and changes in how the emerging institutions are regulated. To the extent possible, current legislative and regulatory proposals will also be considered.

Regulation of Insurance Transactions

This course examines the business and regulatory influences associated with various transactions that are critical to the health and viability of insurance companies. The goal of the class is to expose students not only to the requirements imposed on insurers when engaging in such transactions but also to the practical and political considerations involved. Among the transaction issues to be covered are: jurisdiction and types of incorporation; capitalization; mergers and acquisitions and other ways to buy and sell insurance businesses; reinsurance and securitizations; the use of holding company systems; and, restructurings and liquidations. The instructors plan to provide additional perspective with one or more sessions with high level regulatory personnel as part of the curriculum.

Religion, Risk and Responsibility

Is a seminar studying topics at the intersection of religion and insurance. It will examine the treatment of insurance within religious legal systems (e.g., Islamic law, Canon law, Jewish law, the Amish tradition), the historical role of religious beliefs in the legal response to insurance institutions, the contemporary commercial context of insurance institutions in societies governed by religious law, and the insurance/religion intersection as a problem in the law of church and state.

Securities Regulation

This course involves the study of the Federal Securities Laws. It deals in part with the Securities Act of 1933 and analyzes the coverage of the Act and exemptions therefrom, the method and process and registering securities for public sale, corporate acquisitions and the civil liability provisions. The course also focuses on the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. It covers tender offers, the regulation of broker-dealers, civil liability under Rule 10b-5, obligation of officers and directors, the nature and regulation of security makers, and professional responsibility in securities practice.

Social Welfare Law

Social Welfare Law examines the history of and contemporary state of social welfare programs in the United States. The seminar examines the welfare state from a legal, social and theoretical perspective, with major emphasis placed on the origins and enactment of, as well as the eligibility and controversies surrounding, the welfare and social insurance programs enacted in the New Deal.

Surety Law

Covers the major issues that arise in connection with fidelity and surety bonding through a detailed analysis of representative types of bonds. The surety bond section of the course will focus on public and private construction bonds. The fidelity bond section of the course will focus on employee dishonesty and financial institution bonds.

Torts

This course is an introduction to the principles of civil liability for personal injuries. Topics include intentionally and negligently inflicted harms, liability without fault and liability for defective and dangerous products.

Workers' Compensation Law

Workers' compensation laws in every United States jurisdiction provide benefits to employees who are injured or become ill on the job irrespective of fault, while generally barring such employees from suing their employers and fellow workers (but not others) for their injuries. This course presents an historical perspective on the development of workers' compensation systems in the United States and also examines recent trends in the law. Topics to be considered include: the theory of workers' compensation as social insurance whose purpose is the delivery of compensation and medical treatment to injured workers; the contract of employment (who is an employer, who is an independent contractor and who is a covered employee); when does an injury arise out of and in the course of employment; the differences between accidental injuries and occupational diseases; prior existing conditions and post injury independent causes; compensation for non-fatal injuries and death benefits; recent changes in the delivery of medical treatment and the administration of workers' compensation laws; the rehabilitation of injured workers; and other issues.

      
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