Jeremiah M. Welch Partner

Jeremiah Welch serves as Managing Partner of SDV’s West Coast office and as a member of the firm’s Executive committee. He has represented major stakeholders in some of the most significant construction disasters of the past decade, including the Florida University bridge collapse, the Louisiana Hard Rock Hotel collapse, and the “tilting” San Francisco Millennium Tower. Jeremiah also played a key role as coverage counsel to stakeholders in the post-9/11 World Trade Center debris removal litigation.

His experience deems him one of the foremost leaders in handling complex insurance challenges that require creativity and tenacity. He guided a major retailer through the complex business interruption coverage challenges following the devastating trio of hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, and Rita. Jeremiah also won coverage for an airline whose pilot was mistakenly seized by a foreign government and imprisoned in one of the world’s worst prisons.

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. As an architect of the innovative and industry-leading Labor Guard Insurance Program, Jeremiah has forged a path of insurance product innovation based on cooperative risk management between the insurer and the insured. Overall, 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.

“Clients want practical advice. ‘How does what you’re telling me matter in the real world?’ You only get there by understanding the whole industry – by knowing the insurance transaction from start to finish, by appreciating the different perspectives, and, most importantly, how it fits into the client’s business model,” Jeremiah states.

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. After starting with just himself, the office now hosts 14 lawyers, paralegals, and law clerks. Jeremiah currently resides in Fallbrook, California with his family.