Starr Excess Liability Insurance

Four Bermuda insurers have been named as defendants in a lawsuit brought on behalf of 70 patients of an osteopathic surgeon who has been accused of killing or maiming dozens of patients in the United States.The difference between success and failure may amount to hundreds of millions of dollars for XL Insurance Company Ltd., ACE Insurance Company Ltd., Starr Excess Liability Insurance International Ltd., Allied World Assurance Company Ltd. and two non-Bermuda co-defendants: Teays Valley Health Services, LLC, d.b.a. Putnam General Hospital, of West Virginia, and Health Care Indemnity, Inc., a Colorado-based insurer.

A judge has granted an application by Bermuda-based, AIG-controlled Starr Excess Liability Insurance Ltd. to have a $5 million coverage dispute with scandal-plagued HealthSouth Corporation arbitrated, rather than litigated.In a ruling on November 3, 2005 at the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Judge Karon O'Bowdre ordered the parties to submit to arbitration but stayed her decision pending a ruling in separate but related proceedings.