Photo of Wystan Ackerman

Wystan Ackerman is a partner in Robinson+Cole’s Insurance + Reinsurance Group and handles a diverse range of property insurance litigation, including large business interruption cases, class actions, other complex litigation, and appeals. He also has substantial experience representing insurance companies in putative class actions involving homeowners’ insurance coverage and market conduct/claim-handling practices. He has been prominently involved in high-profile property insurance litigation concerning the September 11th catastrophe and Hurricane Katrina, and Chinese-made drywall. Based in the insurance capital of Hartford, Connecticut, Wystan writes the blog Insurance Class Actions Insider, which was selected by Lexis Nexis as a top insurance blog for 2011.

Wystan grew up in Deep River, Connecticut, a small town on the west side of the Connecticut River in the south central part of the state. He always had strong interests in history, politics and baseball and his heroes growing up were Abraham Lincoln and Wade Boggs (at that time the third baseman for the Boston Red Sox). Wystan says it was his early fascination with Lincoln that drove him to practice law. As a high school senior, he was one of Connecticut’s two delegates to the U.S. Senate Youth Program, which further solidified his interest in law and government. He went on to Bowdoin College, where he wrote for the Bowdoin Orient and majored in government. After Bowdoin, he went on to Columbia Law School. He also interned in the chambers of then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the Second Circuit. Wystan graduated from Columbia in 2001, then worked at Skadden Arps in Boston before returning to Connecticut and joining Robinson+Cole.

When Wystan’s not at his desk, flying around the country trying to save insurance companies from the plaintiffs’ bar, or attending a conference on class actions or insurance litigation he often can be found watching “Dora the Explorer” or reading or playing whiffleball with his young daughter, helping his wife with her business, Option Realty, reading a book about history or politics, or watching the Boston Red Sox.

Read Wystan’s rc.com bio.

The legal media have been inundated with articles by lawyers who represent policyholders and insurance companies discussing business interruption claims arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of this discussion has carried over into the mainstream media, including a recent Wall Street Journal article. Much of the discussion focuses on two issues. First, property insurance policies require “direct physical loss or damage” to property (either to the insured property, or non-insured property within a certain distance of the insured property for a coverage called “civil authority”). A virus has never been found to cause damage to property. Second, many (but not all) of these policies have a virus exclusion. I’m not going to write more here about those issues. Plenty of electronic ink has been spilled on them already. But I haven’t seen anyone write about another exclusion that seems likely to apply to these claims if policyholders can somehow convince a court that there was “direct physical loss or damage” to property: the ordinance or law exclusion.
Continue Reading COVID-19 Business Interruption Insurance Claims – Don’t Overlook the Ordinance Or Law Exclusion

One practice that has plagued the insurance industry in recent years has been contractors soliciting homeowners to make insurance claims after a hailstorm, for example, and then obtaining an assignment of rights to the claim and pursuing litigation against the insurer. The Iowa Supreme Court recently ruled that a contractor’s attempt to obtain such an assignment of rights was void because the contractor was acting as an unlicensed public adjuster, in violation of state law. The line of argument made here may be useful to insurers in other jurisdictions faced with abusive practices by contractors.
Continue Reading Assignments of Benefits Under Homeowners Insurance Policies: Iowa Supreme Court Rules that Assignment Was Void Because Contractor Was Acting as Unlicensed Public Adjuster