https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article310865835.html
May 9, 2025 was my final day as an Executive Claim Director handling complex commercial liability litigation for Chubb Ltd. I’d been in the business from prehistoric times and 23 1/2 years with Chubb. I enjoyed complex coverage analysis; however, I endured my final years managing catastrophic injury claims in three of the most challenging states for civil litigation in the country: Florida, Georgia and Texas.
Other than writing coverage position letters, at which I excelled, the best part of my job involved negotiating settlements either directly with plaintiff attorneys with whom I’d develop a rapport or with the assistance of a mediator if there were complicated issues or multiple parties. For most of my career, the plaintiffs bar and claims professionals maintained collegial relationships and collaborated to reach reasonable resolutions for damaged parties based upon liability and quantifiable damages. Only about 2% of lawsuits filed proceeded to trial.
In the past ten years, however, what was once a collaborative, albeit occasionally contentious process, morphed into a toxic system by which plaintiff attorneys employed strategies of questionable ethics to vilify commercial defendants, anger jurors, and demand mind numbing verdicts or settlements completely out of proportion to actual damages. Elected judges, with campaign contributions coming from plaintiff attorneys, issue rulings based on ‘feelings’ rather than the law. A $100 Million verdict for the wrongful death of one person is no longer considered outrageous.
The stress of attempting to evaluate potential financial exposures based upon facts and probability became too overwhelming. Plaintiffs want a chance to win the lawsuit lottery. Plaintiff attorneys want ridiculous verdicts to post on their websites and billboards. Of note, few of these verdicts withstand the appeals process. Judges refuse to dismiss spurious suits. Juries have been brainwashed into hating corporations that make products, rent apartments to people, transport goods to Walmart, Costco or Publix. They fail to realize that such verdicts cause the costs of goods, services and rent to increase. 😱
For the case at hand, an apartment owner, property manager and security company allegedly failed to provide reasonable security to prevent the shooting death of a non-tenant inside a tenant’s apartment. The tenant opened the door and allowed the perpetrator into her apartment. The shooter was found only 7% at fault. The jury awarded $100,000,000. I’m sorry, no individual life should justify $100,000,000 unless the loss of future income of a multimillionaire or billionaire is such an amount.
This is why I quit. Just reading about this online gives me stress.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/app/uploads/2025/07/Campbell-jury-form.pdf
https://www.insurancejournal.com/app/uploads/2025/07/Campbell-complaint.pdf
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