Insurance as a Strategic Asset: What Every GC Needs to Know

Part 1: Coverage Gaps, Crisis Readiness, and Litigation Control

One of the most important risk mitigation tools in an organization’s arsenal is its insurance program.  Insurance often gets reduced to dollars and cents—premiums, retentions, limits. But when insurance is treated as a mere procurement exercise, it’s a missed opportunity. General Counsel know there’s more to the story. 

Insurance is not just a “must-have” operational requirement; it’s a powerful, often underleveraged asset that reflects your organization’s risk posture, maturity, and values. Yet, legal teams are frequently left out of the conversation until a claim hits. 

At a time when litigation, cyber threats, ESG pressures, and brand scrutiny are ever increasing, insurance should be viewed as a strategic lever. Legal is uniquely positioned to help shape it – we understand risk, not in the abstract but in the way it lives in our contracts, legal claims, operations, and reputation. 

In this first part of our two-part series, we focus on three key ideas that every GC should have top of mind with respect to your insurance coverage program: spotting blind spots, managing coverage during a crisis, and ensuring litigation aligns with business values.   

Identify the Blind Spots Before They Cost You 

One of the most meaningful contributions legal can make to the insurance process is identifying where coverage may not protect the business as intended. Often, the issue isn’t the absence of a policy. It’s what’s buried in – or excluded from – the fine print. 

While blind spots vary by industry and organization, certain risks come up repeatedly: 

• No class action coverage or limitations that kick in post-certification

• Cyber coverage with insufficient sub-limits or with exclusions for increasingly common necessities like ransomware payments 

• Travel policies that don’t cover international trips or that exclude non-employee travelers (like contractors) 

• E&O definitions that don’t reflect a hybrid or tech-enabled service model 

• Contract indemnities that outstrip policy coverage (e.g., data breach clauses) 

  
  

Action Item: Review these risks against your actual business risks and practices and scrub the policy language to ensure you are getting the coverage you think you are. Don’t assume someone else is conducting that review.  

Include Insurance in Your Crisis Response Plan 

When a new claim lands (particularly litigation), you likely won’t have the luxury of time to parse a policy. That’s why it helps to keep a coverage "cheat sheet" (with links to relevant policy provisions) and a copy of your coverage tower at the ready. For each key policy, the list should include: 

• Applicable lines of coverage 

• Broker and carrier contacts, and how to give notice 

• Whether we can select counsel, and under what terms (and whether there are workarounds such as cost-sharing when the right counsel is critical) 

• How defense costs interact with policy limits 

• Key exclusions and conditions 

  
  

In addition, keep a simple litigation “first 48 hours” checklist—notifying the business, calendaring response dates, coordinating with outside counsel, looping in your broker and prepare notice to your carriers.

If the matter is material or the coverage uncertain, bring in coverage counsel early. Their expertise can preserve rights, help avoid unintentional waivers, and improve positioning with the carrier (and potentially the broker) from day one.  We can all read a policy / contract, but insurance isn’t always intuitive.  The devil is in the details (and in where the cases are going). Coverage counsel in such cases is usually money well spent. 

Action Item: Create a checklist and assemble the relevant policy/contract provisions.  Consider identifying and networking with coverage counsel so you know who to call and so they know a bit about you and your organization. 

Make Sure the Litigation Strategy Reflects Your Brand 

Here’s a question not every broker or adjuster will ask: How do you want your organization to be perceived in this litigation? 

In one healthcare role, I made it a priority to educate our adjuster that our brand and reputation were central to how we approached the management and resolution of matters. Even where there was potential liability, it was essential that plaintiffs—and the public—saw us as moral, responsible, and fair. That informed our tone, our counsel selection, and our defense strategy, as it should for many organizations where plaintiffs are customers, collaborators or key business partners. But this approach only works if your policy permits it. 

I’ve also seen policies where the provisions leave little room for input on counsel choice or strategy. The carrier may assume full control from day one. In those circumstances, your organization may find itself on the sidelines of its own defense.  (Same with contracts where a vendor or other third party is responsible for providing defense and indemnification, on their own or through their insurance policies.  It is critical to ensure that you retain sufficient control or contractual rights to protect your brand and organization values.) 

Action Item: Review policies (and contracts) for these key provisions: 

• Do you have meaningful input into counsel selection? 

• Are you consulted on strategy and tone, or cut out entirely? 

• Do you retain consent rights for settlements that may carry reputational impact? 

A less expensive policy that takes you out of the driver’s seat may cost more in long-term business damage than it saves in short-term premium. 

Closing Thought 

As General Counsel, you’re more than a legal gatekeeper. You’re a steward of risk, reputation, and relationships. Insurance programs that align with those priorities are not just a safety net, but a strategic tool with enterprise-wide impact.  

For now, start with your blind spots. Build your playbook. Make sure your coverage reflects who your organization really is. And, watch this space for Part 2 where we’ll explore how legal can lead the renewal process, build better partnerships with finance and risk, and use insurance structure as a reflection of your organization’s risk tolerance and legal maturity. 

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If this resonates with you and you would like to know more, be sure to register for our upcoming webinar on September 10^th titled A Strategic Approach to Insurance for GCs: Insurance as an Asset with Advisory Board members Sandra Mulrain and Vicki Donati and Angela Elhart, Partner & Chair of Neal Gerber's Insurance Policyholder Practice Group

Deborah Solmor

General Counsel, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)

Founder, Ready Set GC