Tag: litigation

The Cost of Insuring Colleges Continues to Rise. And Covid’s Not the Reason.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-cost-of-insuring-colleges-continues-to-rise-and-covids-not-the-reason?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in

Excerpt:

Colleges face an increasingly complex and unpredictable array of challenges — abuse, harassment, assault, police misconduct, accidents, health and environmental hazards, fiduciary wrongdoing, the pandemic — that are making it more difficult to calculate risk and insure against it.

That’s a big part of why annual insurance premiums have gone up by double digits in recent years. John McLaughlin, senior managing director of the higher-education practice at Gallagher, an insurance brokerage and risk-management and consulting firm, says those increases range between an average of 10 and 35 percent across an institution’s insurance portfolio.

….

But what’s striking is that just behind enrollment on colleges’ list of worries are two areas that are not directly related to Covid: data security and Title IX. That’s according to an annual survey by United Educators, which provides liability insurance and risk-management services for its member colleges and schools. The survey was conducted from May 2019 through September 2020, as the coronavirus crisis unfolded, and 480 United Educators member institutions responded.

Author(s): Alexander C. Kafka

Publication Date: 3 March 2021

Publication Site: Chronicle of Higher Education

“They Can’t Hold The Nursing Homes Responsible”

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.dailyposter.com/p/they-cant-hold-the-nursing-homes

Excerpt:

Attorneys insist nursing home negligence cases are not designed to target nursing home employees and other frontline workers caring for facility residents during the pandemic. As Mosher notes, “In most cases, these people are just as much victims as the residents.” 

Instead, the lawsuits are going after nursing home owners and operators, a population that has become increasingly dominated by private equity firms, shell companies, and other secretive for-profit operations, which make staffing and other decisions about quality of care in boardrooms and corporate offices far removed from those who are impacted.

The results of these cases are not about simply scoring million-dollar settlements and padding lawyers’ pockets, say legal experts. Torts and class action suits are an important deterrent to bad behaviors in an industry that has become known for lax oversight. 

Author(s): Joel Warner

Publication Date: 2 March 2021

Publication Site: The Daily Poster

New York City Comptroller: Ax Rule Forcing Private Equity to Pay Legal Bills

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/new-york-city-comptroller-ax-rule-forcing-private-equity-pay-legal-bills/

Excerpt:

Scott Stringer is worried. New York City pension funds are having a tough time enlisting private equity (PE) firms due to a requirement that PE outfits pay for litigation expenses out of their own pockets instead of shunting the cost onto investors.  

So, as the city official overseeing the funds, City Comptroller Stringer is urging fund trustees to scrap this rule, which would help the buyout firms if they run into trouble with regulators or other litigants, as first reported by the New York Post. The idea is to get more PE players managing city pension money.

The New York City Public Pension Funds, the collective of the city’s five pension funds, implemented the private equity rule, called the “GP Expenses Provision,” roughly five years ago after Carlyle Group was swept up in a collusion case and had to pay a $115 million settlement, the Post reported.

Author(s): Sarah Min

Publication Date: 26 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO