The Libor rate manipulation scandal was among the topics covered at Sedgwick’s annual seminar for the Bermuda insurance industry.The Tenth Annual Hot Topics Seminar was held this week at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute and attended by some 100 representatives of insurers, brokers and captive managers.It is hosted by Bermudian lawyer, Mark Chudleigh, principal of Sedgwick’s associated Bermuda office.Eric Scheiner of Sedgwick Chicago outlined the intense public scrutiny faced by several multinational investment banks —- and possible misconduct by other financial institutions.“As US and UK regulators’ investigations into the conduct of other major banks are ongoing, it seems possible that, depending on their findings, they could also be the subject of significant penalties,” Mr Scheiner said.“This may fuel ongoing litigation in the US against financial institutions and other parties in relation to Libor manipulation and it is possible similar claims may be made in other jurisdictions, such as the UK.”Alex Potts of Sedgwick Chudleigh, Bermuda, delivered a well-received presentation on some of the problems that can arise in practice when commercial insurers and reinsurers deal with offshore captive insurers, rent-a-captives, and segregated accounts companies.Mr Potts also discussed some recent cases before the English and Bermuda courts, in which offshore captive insurers have allegedly been used for fraud, unlawful purposes, or the wrongful manipulation of claims.Mr. Potts commented afterwards: “The audience feedback has been excellent. This shows that the reinsurance market in Bermuda is genuinely interested in addressing and solving the issues that sometimes arise when dealing with captives.”Julie Adams, of Sedgwick Houston, a marine insurance specialist, addressed insurance lessons that can be learned from the Deepwater Horizon loss of 2010.“While the disaster will be long remembered for its tragic human toll and ecological impact, the resulting litigation will most likely be noted in admiralty jurisprudence for the important decisions on issues related to the indemnity contracts as between the parties fixed with responsibility for the spill,” Ms Adams noted.Chris Novak of Sedgwick New York covered recent developments in US product recall and the rise in demand for specific product recall insurance.“Recent serious incidents of food contamination in the US and Europe have caused a surge in legislation of the food industry, and have prompted broader calls for more regulatory control of product recalls,” said Mr Novak.Mike Satz of Sedgwick Chicago provided an overview of the healthcare reform debate in the US and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.He focused his talk on an initiative built into the Affordable Care Act that will attempt to improve the delivery of healthcare services while saving Medicare costs through Accountable Care Organizations (“ACOs”).He explained what ACOs are, how they will provide care to a specific group of Medicare beneficiaries, and how they have the incentive to provide care to those Medicare beneficiaries at a lower cost because they will share in the savings to the US government.He told the audience that ACOs differ considerably from the managed care models of the 1990s and that early signs are that the ACO model has the potential to be successful at reigning in Medicare costs. He analysed the types of exposures that will face ACOs and noted that policies issued to the ACO providers may not be sufficient to meet the ACO’s coverage needs.He said that new products will be needed from insurers to address the coverage needs of ACO’s and predicted that more products will probably be launched to serve these new healthcare entities.In her presentation, Jennifer Broda of Sedgwick Chicago, a professional liability insurance expert, discussed indicators that a law firm may be headed for dissolution, following the a number of large US law firms failures in recent years.Ms Broda explained that law firm dissolutions can result in exposures not only under lawyers’ errors and omissions policies, but there is the potential for employment practices claims to be brought, as well, with additional insurance consequences.There has been much litigation on this issue in recent years, and there is still a question of whether profits from such business rightfully belong to the dissolved firms where the business originated, or the new firms to which the unfinished business was transferred.Ms Broda observed: “As more of these failed US firms make their way through bankruptcy, it is a question that will have to be decided with some regularity and hopes are that as a result there will be more clarity in the law on this issue soon”.