What's the relationship between EPLI and Employment Law?

EPLI covers the firm's exposure to claims from employees — discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, retaliation, FLSA wage-and-hour. The policy provides both defense and indemnity; the carrier panel includes employment-law counsel relationships.

What's a typical D&O limit?

Closely-held middle-market D&O limits typically run $5M to $25M. The limit is driven by the company's revenue, the size of its board, the complexity of its capital structure, and the regulatory environment of its industry.

How is Fiduciary Liability different from D&O?

Fiduciary Liability protects officers and trustees of the company's employee benefit plans (401(k), pension, health plans) against ERISA-related claims. It is a separate policy from D&O and is required for any company sponsoring a benefit plan.

What about Cyber for executive risk?

Cyber Liability is increasingly treated as a management-liability concern — the board and officers can be personally named in derivative actions following a material breach. We coordinate Cyber with the D&O placement to ensure the towers don't conflict.

Executive Risk — D&O, EPLI, Fiduciary, Cyber & K&R

Q: Do closely-held businesses really need D&O?

Yes. Most management-liability claims against closely-held businesses come from minority shareholders, departing executives, M&A counterparties, lenders, and regulatory bodies — none of which require the company to be publicly traded.

The Executive Risk practice exists to protect the officers, directors, and trustees of closely-held businesses against the management-liability exposures their commercial general-liability and property programs cannot reach. The work is led by James "Jamie" Holcombe, JD, CPCU — a partner whose legal training and twenty-five years in the management-liability marketplace make him the firm's specialist on D&O, EPLI, Fiduciary, and the increasingly-converged Cyber-D&O conversation.

Most middle-market commercial clients carry, or should carry: Directors & Officers (D&O), Employment Practices Liability (EPLI), Fiduciary Liability, Crime / Fidelity, Cyber Liability, and — depending on the principals' personal-travel exposure — Kidnap & Ransom. The lines are typically placed as a coordinated suite rather than independently, because the underwriting questions overlap, the carrier panels overlap, and the limits should be sized in relation to each other.

The firm places executive-risk programs through Chubb, CNA, Tokio Marine HCC, Travelers Bond, Berkley Specialty, and (for larger placements) Marsh Specialty. Many of these placements include defense outside the limit — meaning the policy limit is preserved for indemnity, not eroded by legal-fee spend.

What we typically write

Directors & Officers (D&O): Three-side coverage: Side A (non-indemnifiable claims against individuals), Side B (corporate reimbursement for indemnified claims), Side C (entity coverage). Closely-held D&O typically excludes securities claims but includes claims from minority shareholders, lenders, M&A counterparties, and regulatory bodies.
Employment Practices Liability (EPLI): Discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, retaliation, FLSA wage-and-hour. Coordinated with the workers compensation program (which covers physical-injury claims that EPLI excludes). Carrier panel includes employment-law counsel relationships.
Fiduciary Liability: Required for any company sponsoring an employee benefit plan (401(k), pension, health plan). Covers ERISA-related claims against officers and trustees of the plan. Distinct from D&O.
Crime / Fidelity: Employee dishonesty, social-engineering loss, computer-and-funds-transfer fraud, forgery. Social-engineering loss is the highest-frequency commercial-crime claim in the firm's book — typically claims of $50,000 to $500,000.
Cyber Liability: First-party (business-interruption from cyber events, ransomware response, data-restoration costs) and third-party (regulatory defense, notification, credit-monitoring, litigation). Increasingly coordinated with D&O for derivative-action exposure.
Kidnap & Ransom (K&R): For closely-held businesses whose principals travel internationally or whose families are personally identifiable as significant-wealth holders. Coordinated with the household's private-client program.
Excess D&O / Side-A DIC: Side-A Difference-in-Conditions coverage to protect individual directors when the company is insolvent, bankrupt, or unable to indemnify. Critical for closely-held boards with outside investors or significant lender covenants.

Most management-liability claims against closely-held businesses come from minority shareholders, departing executives, M&A counterparties, lenders, and regulatory bodies — none of which require the company to be publicly traded.

Carriers we use for executive risk

Chubb

Cornerstone Agency since 1991. The firm's primary D&O market for middle-market closely-held businesses; deep appetite, strong claims-handling, and the Side-A DIC product the firm uses most frequently.

CNA

Appointed 1972. Professional liability, financial-services E&O, and the larger D&O placements; particularly strong for technology and financial-services clients.

Tokio Marine HCC

Appointed 2010. Specialty management liability, kidnap and ransom, and technology errors and omissions.

Travelers Bond

Crime, fidelity, and the Side-A DIC product for clients with larger excess D&O towers.

Berkley Specialty

Closely-held D&O for complex capital structures (multiple share classes, outside investors, family-office ownership) where the standard markets decline.

Marsh Specialty

Placement partnership for the largest middle-market D&O and Cyber programs — typically when the towers exceed $25M aggregate.

D&O, EPLI, Fiduciary, Cyber, Crime, K&R.