McDermott Will & Schulte, a global law firm

Tom advises industry participants on a wide variety of regulatory and transactional matters, including cybersecurity compliance, insurtech ventures, and Holding Company Act filings. He has helped clients form, acquire, and invest in US insurers, reinsurers, and intermediaries. He counsels non-insurers on advertising, licensing, and marketing generally, and provides regulatory compliance advice to service contract issuers and other specialty product providers. More recently, Tom’s work has included helping develop parametric insurance products as well as advising insurers on emerging issues including climate change risk disclosure and using artificial intelligence and big data.

Tom has guided non-US insurers and reinsurers in the London Market, Europe, Bermuda, and Asia for more than 35 years, helping them obtain and maintain surplus lines and reinsurer approvals, as well as identifying, monitoring, and reporting on relevant NAIC activities and state and federal legislation. In recent years, the regulatory status options for non-US reinsurers in particular have multiplied, and Tom has acted, and continues to act, for many non-US reinsurers that have established large US reinsurance trusts. More recently, Tom has continued to represent non-US reinsurers that have obtained certified and/or reciprocal reinsurer status.

Beginning in 2020, Tom began tracking and commenting on developing climate change regulation and disclosure requirements in the US and in other key jurisdictions, and he is the Insurance Transactions and Regulatory team’s representative on the firm’s ESG Working Group.

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• Advises many of the non-US reinsurers that have obtained approval for multiple beneficiary reinsurance trusts or “certified reinsurer” status
• Advising multiple non-US reinsurers seeking reciprocal insurer status
• Advise numerous issuers and marketers of vehicle, watercraft, cell phone and consumer electronics service contracts on regulatory compliance and corporate structuring matters
• Advises many of the non-US surplus lines insurers that are NAIC/IID-listed, including with respect to changing NAIC listing rules
• Heads the team providing state and federal legislation, regulatory and insurance tax advice to the International Underwriting Association of London (IUA), the leading trade association for international insurers and reinsurers
• Advised on the formation and licensing of a new US branch of a non-US reinsurer, including passage of state legislation permitting the venture*
• Obtained NYDFS approval for a venture fund’s investments in two insurers, each in excess of 10%*
• Obtained approval for multiple investment funds to file disclaimers of control following multiple debt-for-equity swaps in which each fund acquired more than 10% of the equity of a regulated insurer*

*Matter handled prior to joining the firm.

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