Jeremiah M. Welch Partner

Jeremiah represents most of the nation’s largest construction contractors, assisting with all aspects of insurance consultation and recovery. Development of carefully tailored contract language to enable risk transfer and insurance recovery, procuring insurance terms that match the needs of the project and its stakeholders, developing strategies for risk transfer and insurance claim management, and ultimately litigating insurance disputes when necessary. Jeremiah specializes in strategic resolution of complex claims which require a coordinated effort of contractual entitlement, liability defense or prosecution, and insurance recovery. Jeremiah’s work typically involves builder’s risk, general liability, professional liability/indemnity, default risk, pollution liability and other related policy lines.

Jeremiah and his team recently obtained the landmark decision in Archer W. – De Moya Joint Venture v. Ace Am. Ins. Co., 713 F. Supp. 3d 1260 (S.D. Fla. 2024) which clarified the meaning of “physical damage” and the function of the “LEG 3” faulty workmanship exclusion in builder’s risk policies.

Outside the courtroom, Jeremiah is amongst the insurance industry’s most respected scholars. He provides education, training, and advice as a consultant to insured corporations and several of the world’s largest retail and wholesale brokerages. Jeremiah was the creative force behind the innovative and industry-leading Labor Guard Insurance Program which has become the dominant model for insuring construction risk in the New York’s five boroughs – the most challenging insurance market in the country.  Jeremiah’s practice is focused on leveraging a 25-year culmination of knowledge and experience very few insurance professionals have – litigation of some of the country’s most significant insurance disputes, combined with day-to-day challenges facing brokers and their clients, and placing complex coverage for many of the largest commercial and civil construction projects in the world.

Jeremiah Welch serves as Managing Partner of SDV’s West Coast office and is a member of the firm’s Executive committee. Jeremiah has been a steady leader driving 20 years of SDV growth and is now spearheading SDV’s international expansion through partnership with Fenchurch Law.

A U.S. Army Veteran and Connecticut native, Jeremiah joined SDV in 2007 and returned to California in 2016 to establish the firm’s West Coast office.  Jeremiah currently resides in Fallbrook, California with his family.

To quote Jeremiah: “I don’t chase awards. My honor is working year after year shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the greatest lawyers in the industry here at SDV and with brilliant and successful leaders in the brokerage community. Most of all though, I have the privilege to work with the companies that build the world we live in. My honor is driving over a massive cable span bridge, standing atop a skyscraper or sitting in a giant stadium thinking ‘I help the people who built this’.”