Wynne Lawrence

Full Profile

Wynne is a Partner in the Insurance and Reinsurance disputes team in Clyde & Co’s London office and a founding member of the firm’s cross-disciplinary Climate Change and Resilience practice group.

Wynne specialises in (re)insurance coverage disputes, with a focus on complex reinsurance matters involving multiple parties and jurisdictions. She acts for both cedents and reinsurers on common and uncommon issues arising under facultative and treaty reinsurance. Wynne has particular experience in disputes related to run-off transactions and insurance linked securities (ILS). 

She advises on issues under reinsurances governed by English law, often for Lloyd’s and London market clients. In addition, she provides advice on English or international reinsurance custom and jurisprudence where this is relevant under reinsurances governed by other systems of law. Wynne represents global (re)insurance market clients involved in disputes before the English High Court and Arbitration tribunals (ad hoc, ARIAS, LCIA) and regularly advises on UK (re)insurance regulatory matters (FCA and Lloyd's) and wordings. 

Wynne is a recognised thought leader on climate liability risk and the insurance industry response to climate change and other emerging planetary boundary risks. She was lead author of the Insurance Development Forum’s report on "Technology and the protection gap" and co-author of the Geneva Association’s flagship report on Climate Litigation.  

In her climate change consultancy work, Wynne advises insurers and companies in other industries (shipping, aviation, trade and commodities, natural resources) on climate liability risk exposures, and arranges bespoke seminars and workshops on climate-related liability risks to businesses, directors and officers.

Wynne is an Ex-Officio Member of the Insurance Development Forum Steering Committee. She sits on the International Underwriting Association (IUA)’s Climate Change and ESG Committees and the Professional Lines Underwriting Group, and is actively involved in the firm’s membership of the Insurance & Reinsurance Legacy Association. She is a member of Clyde & Co’s Environmental Sustainability and Biodiversity Steering Committee.

Experience

• Advising on contractual interpretation and aggregation under reinsurance treaties in relation to Covid-19 and Ukraine war-related losses and conducting intensive fact analysis of claims across jurisdictions, working collaboratively with colleagues advising on coverage for underlying claims
• Working with clients on in-depth reinsurance wordings analysis and reviews, including assistance with renewal negotiations, developing precedent banks and drafting notes
• Assisting clients on structuring and coverage for captive and multinational programme insurance, reinsurance and retrocession structures 
• Advising on coverage in reorganisations of reinsurance programmes, including intragroup and external panel reinsurances/retrocessions
• Developing and drafting parametric insurance wordings for wildfire, earthquake and other natural catastrophe risks, and other support to insurers’ Alternative Risk Transfer teams 
• Successfully securing a worldwide freezing injunction in the High Court for insurer clients
• Advising on strategy and securing a favourable settlement in a long-running reinsurance dispute involving multiple jurisdictions and contract parties across a number of years of account
• Advising on evidentiary issues and tracing of long-tail reinsurance and retrocession, limitation issues, and recovery strategy