Law Commons^™

The Commodification Of Insurance Defense Practice, Herbert M. Kritzer

Vanderbilt Law Review

In this paper, I present an analysis of insurance defense practice using the heuristic of a commodity.7 Essentially, I argue that many, perhaps even most, insurance companies have come to view the more routine work of insurance defense as something to be purchased in a marketplace where there are a large number of interchangeable providers.8 Loyalty between buyer and seller, to the extent that it had been an important element of the relationship, has faded. Today, insurance companies frequently shop for the best deal, which may include producing insurance defense services in-house rather than purchasing those services from an outside …