Adam Budesheim

A relentless advocate for policyholder clients, Adam Budesheim leverages over 15 years of experience successfully protecting and enforcing their coverage rights. Adam’s pragmatic approach—attuned to opportunities to reach advantageous settlements but trial ready when litigation is required—has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for clients in some of the industry’s most complex and contentious disputes.

Adam represents corporate policyholder clients from diverse industries in complex coverage litigation under a broad array of policies, including general liability, pollution legal liability, professional liability, directors and officers, and many others. Adam handles critical insurance disputes and has a track record of achieving exceptional recoveries. He also leverages his experience to help clients assess their insurance coverage.

Trusted by clients to handle their most difficult and critical insurance disputes, Adam is often called upon to resolve long-tail liability cases – particularly challenging policyholder claims as they often involve coverage for litigation in which plaintiffs are claiming injuries arising from decades’ old occurrences that span multiple policy years and carriers. His well-established track record of achieving exceptional recoveries for clients in these disputes was recently illustrated in significant trial court and appellate victories that secured well over $200 million in coverage for the subsidiary of a Fortune 500 client facing thousands of underlying lawsuits alleging its equipment caused plaintiffs’ long-term exposure to airborne asbestos dust.

Adam also leverages his litigation experience proactively to help clients assess their current programs, alert them to emerging liability risks and lay the groundwork for maximizing future insurance recoveries.

Achieved significant victories on behalf of the subsidiary of a Fortune 500 industrial technology company seeking coverage from umbrella and excess liability insurers for losses arising from thousands of underlying claims alleging the client’s equipment exposed plaintiffs to air-borne asbestos dust. Successfully defended a trial court win on appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court which affirmed the finding that “noncumulation” clauses were not implicated in the dispute – a ruling that preserved the insurance limits available to our client by many millions of dollars. Before the same appellate court, successfully argued for the reversal of the trial court’s finding that all of the client’s asbestos losses arose out of a single occurrence. In a published decision, the court agreed with our definition of “occurrence,” restoring the coverage available to the client under multi-year policies. The Illinois Supreme court later denied the insurers’ petition for leave to appeal, cementing our earlier wins and preserving the client’s insurance limits.

Successfully argued a motion to reconsider, convincing an arbitration panel to reverse an adverse summary disposition ruling and instead grant summary disposition in favor of our client, a private equity investment firm seeking coverage for losses arising from underlying False Claims Act actions and related $23 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. Following a damages hearing, the panel awarded our client the full amount of indemnity plus defense costs and pre-award interest. The New York Supreme Court, New York County denied the insurer’s petition to vacate the award and instead granted our cross-motion to confirm.

Complete victory in the defense of Transamerica Corporation in a dispute with a former subsidiary (IMO Industries) regarding $1.5 billion in insurance coverage. Transamerica had purchased insurance for itself and its subsidiaries as part of a consolidated risk management approach. After a six-month trial, the court ruled in Transamerica’s favor on all claims against it, entering declaratory judgment that Transamerica’s decades-old divesture agreement left its former subsidiary liable for its own asbestos losses. The court rejected that Transamerica was responsible for deductibles, retentions or gaps in insurance coverage or was effectively transformed into a “de facto” insurer because of its risk management efforts. The Appellate Division upheld all of the trial court’s rulings and the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed and ordered costs be paid in Transamerica’s favor.

Advising multinational consumer products company in connection with liability insurance coverage for talc lawsuits.