Back in 2018, there weren’t too many insurance professionals talking about social inflation.
Executive Summary
Corporate litigation is at risk of becoming a settlement mill, defense lawyer John Hall Jr. told Carrier Management recently as he described the consequences of aberration verdicts and a talent crisis facing the nation's defense bar. Hall and a group of insurance industry and defense lawyers called American Legal Connections aim to bring plaintiff-style solidarity—and well-deserved respect—to the defense bar as they learn how to defend damages and offer personalized stories to juries about the clients they represent.William Wilt, president of Assured Research, wrote an article for Carrier Management about the re-emergence of a late 1970s-1980s phenomenon, and W.R. Berkley Chief Executive W. Robert Berkley Jr. started to sound the alarm about what was on the horizon for liability insurers.
Related articles: Social Inflation Is Back, Fueled by Lawyer Advertising and Other Factors: Assured Research Analysis ; It’s Time to Face Reality, Berkley Says
Defense lawyers at the law firm Hall Booth Smith, P.C. were reading the same tea leaves as Wilt and Berkley back in 2018, before the count of CM articles on social inflation jumped to 10 in 2019 and leapt to 70 in 2024.
