Tracy Alan Saxe presented on "Builders Risk," along with panel members Judith Spry of BDO Consulting, Vincent Zegers of AON Risk Services, Inc. and William Noonan of Structure Tone, Inc. at the BVR Legal/Mealey's Comprehensive Construction Defect Claims & Coverage Superconference.  This presentation covered the topics of coverage, exclusions and risk of loss; gap coverage; subrogation issues; who is an insured; avoiding premature termination of coverage (problems with overlap of owner occupancy and punch our process); claim adjustment issues (to whom is the insurance payable and who adjusts the claim and how to avoid disputes over proceeds); deductibles, sub-limits and co-insurance; and business interruption.

Tracy was the Moderator for two sessions at the superconference.  The first session was "Important Negotiation Strategies" with panel members Paul Amirata of AXA Insurance Company and Paul Van Osselaer of Van Osselaer & Buchanan.  This presentation focused on mediation and settlement preparation (the law, the facts, mediator selection, and defining your objectives), choosing your big battles ahead of time and getting compensated for concessions while avoiding the even-increment mentality, the benefits of principal to principal negotiations, staying focused at the end of the road (the settlement agreement drafting process), knowing your style and using it to your advantage, strategies for negotiating with insurance carriers as an additional insured, resolving conflicts with insurance claims in multiple forums (owner/contractor dispute subject to arbitration, contractor/subcontractor claims subject to litigation), and mediation and settlement of coverage disputes.  The second session was "Business Risk Exclusions" with panel members Dave Simons of KB Home and Wilson Townsend of RiverStone Claims Management LL made up the panel of speakers.  This presentation focused on the analysis of business risk exclusions and how the courts are currently interpreting them, the classification of when a building is "impaired" and the application to general contractors v. subcontractors.