Kucsan, Brian Joseph

Rachel Kronowitz is a founding partner and Vice Chair of Gilbert LLP focusing on insurance recovery for significant claims, strategic risk management, and counseling corporations in structuring insurance and risk transfer portfolios.  She assists corporations in evaluating their existing insurance portfolios, addressing their insurance and risk transfer needs, and recovering from insurers when significant losses occur.

Rachel counsels corporations on a variety of issues related to strategic risk management and insurance recovery, including the assessment of corporate risks and exposures and the availability of insurance to respond to those risks.  She has a particular focus on the creative restructuring of insurance portfolios to meet the needs of corporate policyholders.  Recent examples include:

• Representation of a Fortune 50 company in due diligence related to a multi-billion dollar acquisition

• Counsel to a company with mass tort liability related to corporate restructuring, private equity acquisition and insurance recovery

• Representation of a private equity firm in due diligence related to potential liabilities and available risk transfer mechanisms for target companies

Rachel also represents corporate policyholders in negotiations and formal alternative dispute resolution proceedings to obtain recovery of insurance assets for defense and liability costs associated with covered claims.  These insurance coverage disputes include losses associated with mass tort claims, first party liability issues and claims arising out of shareholder litigation and corporate governance disputes.  Examples of recent matters include:

• Representation of a Fortune 100 company in the resolution and payment of billions of dollars of coverage related to mass tort and product claims

• Representation of a Fortune 50 company against its D&O insurer for coverage for defense costs and indemnity payments in connection with shareholder litigation

• Obtaining over $1 billion in insurance coverage payments for mass tort claims for a multinational corporation

Rachel has assisted corporations with developing strategies to manage and resolve claims against their insurers and crafting innovative resolutions to provide coverage for these claims.  She also assists corporations contemplating acquisitions in assessing potential liability and the availability of insurance or other risk transfer mechanisms to provide coverage for those liabilities. 

Prior to joining Gilbert LLP, Rachel was a partner in the Complex Dispute Resolution Group at Dickstein Shapiro in Washington, DC.  Previously, she was affiliated with the Washington firm Covington & Burling.

Rachel is a frequent speaker on risk management and insurance recovery topics to a wide variety of audiences, including the Association of Financial Professionals, the American Bar Association, and the Reinsurance Association of America.  Rachel has authored many articles on insurance and risk management-related topics, including climate change and strategic risk management.