Insurance

Hartford sits at the center of the U.S. insurance industry, and Oak, Elm & Birch has advised Connecticut-domiciled carriers, reinsurers, and insurance-adjacent businesses since the firm opened in 1974. The work spans three overlapping disciplines: regulatory counsel under the Connecticut Insurance Holding Company Act and related statutes, transactional work on insurance-sector M&A and financing, and coverage litigation in Connecticut state and federal court.

On the regulatory side, the firm has handled more than a dozen Form A change-of-control filings with the Connecticut Insurance Department over the last decade, along with the Form B registration statements, Form D prior-approval transactions, and pre-acquisition notices that make up the daily architecture of insurance-holding-company compliance. Managing Partner Steven Stone leads the practice and previously spent seven years as in-house counsel to a Hartford-based industrial holding company with significant insurance-sector exposure.

Transactional work includes M&A, reinsurance treaties, and captive-insurance formation. Senior Associate Phoebe Vasquez handles cross-border fund-formation matters that frequently touch reinsurance and Bermuda/Cayman investment vehicles, and Drake Whitmore brings a maritime and admiralty background to the reinsurance and ocean-marine coverage work on the litigation side.

Coverage litigation runs through the Litigation group, with Claire Park anchoring the docket. She clerked for Judge Janet Bond Arterton in the District of Connecticut, where much of the firm's federal coverage work is tried, and has handled CGL, D&O, E&O, business-interruption, and specialty-line disputes. The firm represents both policyholders and carriers, which is unusual in Connecticut — most local firms have picked a side — and we have found that the dual perspective sharpens the practice on both.

Captive formation and alternative risk transfer have become a growing piece of the work, particularly as Connecticut's captive statute has matured and as the Insurance Department has streamlined the pure-captive application process. The firm advises on domicile selection (Connecticut versus Vermont, South Carolina, and offshore jurisdictions), governance structures, and the regulatory reporting obligations that follow formation.

We do not represent every carrier in Hartford — positional conflicts make that impossible — but the firm's client list includes several Connecticut-domiciled specialty carriers, multiple reinsurance intermediaries, and a regional captive management company. When a new Form A lands or a coverage dispute escalates, the phones ring within the hour.