Plaintiff’s tactics: Fueling legal system abuse

Record date: 01/31/25  
Air date: 03/12/25 

Zurich North America's, “Future of Risk” podcast, delivers another eye-opening episode of the social inflation podcast mini-series, underscoring the need for a unified response to the escalating challenges posed by plaintiffs’ tactics and the significant impact it is having on businesses and consumers alike.

Zurich North America’s, Lisa Bellino, VP, Claims Judicial & Legislative Affairs and Allen Kirsh, SVP, Head of Claims Judicial &Legislative Affairs, discuss what factors are driving the rise in insurance claims and litigation costs. Listen as the guests tackle challenges that are playing a role in maximizing jury awards, offering optimism for positive change through continued advocacy and legislative efforts.

In this miniseries, other episodes include:

January 15: 2025 Legislative outlook: Reforming legal system abuse

January 29: Wide implications of third-party litigation funding

February 12: Nuclear verdicts: The drivers, impacts and solutions

February 26: Social inflation: The role of claims fraud

March 26: Premises Liability

Guests:

Lisa Bellino
VP, Claims Judicial & Legislative Affairs
Zurich North America

Lisa M. Bellino is Zurich North America’s VP, Claims Judicial & Legislative Affairs, combatting social inflation and its drivers, most often at a national level. In this role, she analyzes these issues and educates others about them, building a coalition of attorneys, carriers, brokers, businesses, and tort reform groups to achieve a level playing field within our civil justice system.

Previously, Lisa was the Chief Trial Attorney of Zurich’s Philadelphia Staff Legal Office, handling a wide variety of cases for Zurich North America through trial and appeal, as well as training attorneys in the art of trial advocacy. She obtained her undergraduate degree from La Salle University and her JD from Temple University School of Law. In addition to being the attorney advisor for two mock trial teams, PREP teacher at St. Patrick Church, and volunteer/foster for Brookline Lab Rescue, Lisa sits on multiple committees and advisory boards.

Allen Kirsh
SVP, Head of Claims Judicial and Legislative Affairs
Zurich North America Claims

Allen Kirsh has served as the Head of Claims Judicial & Legislative Affairs since November 2021. He is responsible for the claims-led strategy to combat Social Inflation and related drivers including eroding tort reform. He regularly works with others in the insurance industry to build a coalition to work together on these and related issues. In his role, Allen also has responsibility for the Staff Legal organization and our overall management of external counsel.

Prior to his current role, Allen was the Head of Staff Legal in Zurich North America. He was responsible for the leadership, strategy, and results of the Staff Legal organization. Allen started his Zurich career 22 years ago as a Senior Trial Attorney in the Chicago Staff Legal office. Since then, he has held several leadership positions in Staff Legal, Claims Administration and Operations, Claims Quality Assurance, and Strategic Planning. Allen has also served as the Claims Chief of Staff responsible for development and execution of the ZNA Claims’ priorities.

Allen began his career as an attorney representing plaintiffs in personal injury litigation. He moved on to represent Cook County government as the Head of Torts and Civil Rights Litigation with the Cook County State’s Attorney. Allen then spent several years in private practice representing corporations in civil litigation.

Allen holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Illinois and a juris doctor degree from DePaul University School of Law. He is licensed to practice law in both Illinois and California.

Host:

Al Orendorff
Communications Professional

Al Orendorff is a communications professional who has previously held leadership positions at Zurich North America, Allstate Insurance, Aon Corp., Genworth Financial and Choose Chicago.

Orendorff began his career as a journalist working in television and radio news, including stints at NBC-TV in Peoria, Illinois, Black Entertainment Television, and WBEZ and WGN radio in Chicago. He is based in Chicago.

(PLEASE NOTE: This is an edited podcast transcript, capturing speakers with natural speech patterns that may include incomplete sentences and/or asides, grammatical errors, verbal shorthand and some statements that may be less clear in print.)

Episode transcript:

AL ORENDORFF: The increasing manipulation of the legal system is indicated by larger and larger jury verdicts that are having profound effects on businesses and consumers alike. Tactics plaintiffs' attorneys use in the courtroom play a critical role.

Welcome to Future of Risk presented by Zurich North America. In these podcasts, we explore the changing risk and resilience landscape and share insights on the challenges that face businesses to help you meet tomorrow prepared.

This podcast miniseries is all about social inflation. Social inflation refers to the rising costs of insurance claims and litigation costs that go beyond general economic inflation. They're driven by societal factors rather than traditional market forces. Those factors include social attitudes, legal practices, legal system abuse and cultural norms. The effects reach further than the insurance industry and lead to higher insurance premiums for businesses, a strain on the economy and growing financial hardships on everyday consumers.

Today we're exploring plaintiffs' tactics, including legal system manipulation in the courtroom, and how those tactics can have an effect on social inflation. I'm Al Orendorff, and today I am speaking with Allen Kirsh, Head of Claims, Judicial & Legislative Affairs at Zurich North America. And Lisa Bellino, Vice President of Claims Judicial & Legislative Affairs, also at Zurich North America. Allen and Lisa, welcome to the podcast.

ALLEN KIRSH AND LISA BELLINO: [Crosstalk] Thank you, Al.

Defining legal system manipulation

ORENDORFF: I'll start off today with a two-part question. What do we mean by legal system manipulation? And then the second part is, what role do plaintiffs' tactics play in fueling that manipulation that drives the rising cost of insurance claims and litigation that businesses are now seeing?

KIRSH: Yes. Thank you, Al.

First of all, legal system manipulation is really a big part of what we see in driving social inflation. So, it's a really important topic and I'm glad we're talking about it. At the top of the hour here, I want to be clear that we as an insurer have an obligation to pay what we owe and firmly believe that when someone is injured as a result of another's negligence, they are entitled to compensation.

But what they're entitled to is “how do we make them whole again.” Legal system manipulation is really when the attorneys go beyond arguing, “how do we make the plaintiff whole?” And it really becomes more about maximizing that jury award. So, how do plaintiffs’ tactics play a role in that manipulation? It's a large one. As I said, our jury system is really designed to determine if one is negligent, then what are the damages that are owed from that, approximately caused by that negligence.

When it comes to economic damages, fairly straightforward, right? We're talking about lost time and medical cost. But really when it comes to the non-economic damages, like the pain and suffering, that's really where the jury's given a wide discretion.

Quite frankly, not a lot of tools to figure that out. So as a result, these plaintiffs’ tactics are really designed to maximize the jury award, and they don't really provide good guidance on what it takes to make the plaintiff whole. Instead, they're really designed to inflame the jury and, in some cases, mislead the jury in an effort to maximize that jury award.

ORENDORFF: Not wanting to get ahead of ourselves here, but the question occurred to me. And that is, how much do you think the lack of understanding of how the legal system is supposed to work plays into this kind of manipulation?

BELLINO: So, how about I take that one, Al. I think that's a great question because when any attorney walks into a courtroom, the jury expects the trial to be like they see on TV. Back in the day, it was, “If L.A. Law could do it, you could do it in any courtroom across America.”

So, people [are] already going to court with a preconceived notion of what the trial's going to be, what the legal system is, and what justice means because it's all been tainted or morphed by television. And it's not just TV shows, it's what we see on social media, what we hear on the radio and things like that.

So, people don't really understand it. And those people are basically taken advantage of by attorneys who can use that naivete to their advantage and score bigger bucks, basically, for their efforts.

Key tactics used by plaintiffs’ attorneys to influence jury verdicts

ORENDORFF: Okay. Let's go into those details a little bit. What are some of the frequent tactics used to help plaintiffs win cases?

KIRSH: Yes, so we've really divided these into four different categories. One is the plaintiff attorney advertising that we see. I think that plays into what Lisa was mentioning, as well in terms of the way jurors come into the system thinking the way it should be, right? They're exposed to large numbers and whatnot.

Another, and we'll go into these in a little more depth in just a moment, but the rest are forum shopping, So, looking for a jurisdiction where the plaintiffs can get the largest verdict; something called the reptile theory, which is a tactic that's been used for many, many years - and we'll explore that a bit in a minute - as well as anchoring, which is really how does the plaintiff’s attorneys get jurors or potential jurors to think at the very beginning of the case that it's worth a lot of money. So, they anchor them on a number early on.

So, I'd like to start with the plaintiff advertising, and I think this is something that has really proliferated over the years. By some estimates, attorneys are spending two and a half billion dollars a year on advertising, and this is of course, billboards [and] TV advertising.¹ I saw one in a movie theater, not to mention social media, which is both paid, and then there's unpaid with social media, as well.

It's not really just the sheer amount of money and the amount of ads that are out there; it's more of the intent behind the ads. Years ago, it was, “How do we get people in the door?” Now these ads are really focused on, "Well, I got this client $10 million, I got that client $20 million."

And what they're doing is really letting the jurors and potential plaintiffs — for that matter, think that these really are the value that these cases are worth. When in reality and very often, these are just outliers.

ORENDORFF: So, it's more than just advertising, it's actually an attempt to influence.

KIRSH: Absolutely, because these ads are so prolific, they're just, wherever you look. I mean, if you're driving down the road, you're going to see them on TV. And while it used to be late night, now it's just all times during the day. So, they're using this in part not just to get clients, but to indoctrinate, I would say, potential jurors on the value of this case.

Now, there's another part of that, as well. They've also focused a lot on insurance companies. Now, in a typical trial, the fact that there's insurance or the defendant has insurance would not be admissible. The jury would not hear anything about that. But by these ads focusing on the insurance companies time and time again, they're basically letting the jury know — even though you're not going to hear this during the trial — you need to know that there's an insurance company behind this.

So, “Don't worry. It's not the individual defendant who's maybe sitting at the defense table who's going to pay this verdict or this judgment, but, in fact, an insurance company.” And I think part of that tactic ties into whatever anti-insurance company and anti-corporate bias that exists in our society. So, Lisa, any other thoughts from a plaintiff attorney advertising perspective?

BELLINO: Yes, thanks. I was just going to add it's been estimated that, with respect to legal advertising, the average American is inundated with over 45,000 ads per day. That translates to about one every two seconds. And that's just legal advertising.

When we go back to that naive jury that I was talking about before, oftentimes the ads focus not on punishing the big bad insurance company or the big bad corporation, but also these ads try to — for lack of a better word educate the average American on what the law is. So, when they give this slanted view of the law in a commercial, the juror or the prospective juror will take that into the courtroom. So, they have a preconceived notion of what the law is.

Statistically, it has been determined that between 46 and 61 percent of jurors will not follow the judge's instruction on the law. So, when you ask the average American what the law is on something, they will regurgitate what they see in an advertisement, and they take that into the courtroom and award accordingly. Not what the law is, but what they've heard on TV. So that's another method of how advertising shapes and then leads to these nuclear verdicts.

KIRSH: Great. Thank you, Lisa. So, the next tactic we wanted to address is forum shopping. And what that really means, in a nutshell, is the jurisdiction in which the plaintiff's attorney decides to file this action. Now, we know that there are a number of jurisdictions where we see much higher jury verdicts.

In fact, ATRA, which stands for the American Tort Reform Association, puts out a list every year of what they call judicial hell holes,” and these typically are certain jurisdictions across the country that are notorious for larger and larger verdicts.

So, it's no secret that the plaintiffs, if they can, will try to file in these jurisdictions. So, regardless of whether there's real connections to that case or not. So, Lisa, I know you live in the state of Pennsylvania and that has some unique rules and laws when it comes to forum shopping. So, if you can provide some examples, that would be great.

BELLINO: Sure. In 2023, the United States Supreme Court came down with a case called “Mallory,” in which the gentleman there worked for Norfolk Southern Railroad. He eventually developed a type of cancer and wanted to sue under federal statute for contracting that disease. He never lived in Pennsylvania, he never worked in Pennsylvania. But he sued in Pennsylvania and specifically in Philadelphia, which is the litigation hotspot of the entire commonwealth.

Although he had no physical contact to Pennsylvania, he availed himself of a rule in Pennsylvania that said, if the company's registered to do business there, it is subject to jurisdiction there. And so, he was able, after the Supreme Court looked at this case, to say, “Yes, you can. You can come to Philadelphia because you can come to Pennsylvania, and it doesn't matter whether you've lived there or not.”

So as a result, we see in jurisdictions that are these litigation hotspots more and more plaintiffs coming to file their lawsuits regardless of whether they have actually set foot there because they're worth more money there. Also, those jurisdictions have a little bit more lenient rules and procedures so that what might not be evidenced in a trial, in a more conservative jurisdiction may very well be in one of these more lenient jurisdictions.

KIRSH: Yes, that's a good example. Thank you. The other tactic I mentioned was the reptile theory. And as I said, that's been around for a while. It stems really from a book that was written in 2009 that was actually titled, "The Plaintiff's Revolution." And essentially the reptile theory is a way of getting the jury to feel anger or even fear about a specific case. And the idea is that that anger in that fear refers to the reptilian portion of one's brain.

So, think, fight or flight. That would drive a larger verdict because the jurors then encourage to quote, unquote, “send a message to this defendant.” If you want to protect your community, your family, then you will send a message by a very, very large verdict.

So, years ago it was thought that sympathy played the biggest factor when it came to larger and larger verdicts. But, one of these attorneys was a psychologist and they came up with this theory that it's really this fear that's going to drive a larger verdict, and it does resonate with jurors. So, Lisa, in your practice, I know you've encountered the reptile theory quite a bit. I was hoping you could provide some perspective on this.

BELLINO: Sure. One of the main features of the reptile theory is in conjunction with that fear aspect of it, is to make that fear turn into something else. They often times refer to it as making the jury the conscience of the community. So that the jury feels the need to protect people and therefore not necessarily follow the law that the judge gives them, but do their own justice so that it doesn't happen to them or their loved ones.

A real concrete example that we see — let's take a construction case for example. I saw this many, many times. Under the standard agreement between the owner and the contractor, there is a specific responsibility for safety, and it is spelled out. What it means and what it's used for in a trial are completely different things.

And plaintiffs' attorneys will home in on this one section to make it look like the contractor is responsible for essentially wrapping any of the workers there in bubble wraps so that they're not responsible for their own safety at all. In fact, even if the contractor provides every potential safeguard and the person gets hurt because they disregard those safeguards, they will turn that against the contractor and say to the jury, “Look, you have to protect your loved ones, too. Don't let this happen to you.”

So not only are we seeing large awards, [but] we’re also seeing punitive awards because the jury wants to punish anybody that allegedly may cause harm to anyone else. And this theory is very, very effective.

KIRSH: Yes, that's a really good point. When you use the word punitive, they're not necessarily punitive damages claimed in that case. It's just the award itself for negligence tends to be more on the punitive side, right, because they're responding to that sense of anger. Correct?

BELLINO: Yes.

KIRSH: So, the last tactic we wanted to talk about was “anchoring.” I mentioned this a little bit at the intro, but essentially what anchoring is, is indoctrinating the jury early on in terms of the value of the case.

So, the way this comes about is even during jury selection, when the attorneys are allowed to ask jurors questions and a plaintiff's attorney may ask the question, “Are you comfortable awarding $25 million in this case? Are you comfortable awarding $50 million in this case?”

Their point is not really, I mean, it's partly to find out if they are comfortable with that, but also its letting them know, this is what we think this case is worth, right? So that juror right from the very beginning, before they've heard a shred of evidence or even met the parties, are thinking, “Oh, wow, I guess this case is worth a lot of money.”

I would also mention because we talked about advertising before — how this all ties back into this, this national form of anchoring by prospective jurors having this sense of an outsized value of these cases. So Al, I mean, all in, these are the four probably main categories of plaintiffs’ tactics that we see most often, and that I think are most influential.

Overcoming jury bias in litigation

ORENDORFF: I've got a couple follow-up questions to this. So, I remember in the old movie "Ben-Hur," the Roman tribune Messala asked a rhetorical question about, “How do you fight an idea?” And he answered his own question by saying, “With another idea.” And so, I'm curious as to how you can offset this fear that you put in the hearts and minds of juries. What do you do to fight that?

BELLINO: That's a really good question, Al. I mean, you could look at it theoretically, or you could look at it tangentially from the perspective of the average trial attorney. I will say that the way to practice law in a courtroom anyway has changed significantly.

In the last 20 years, we have developed our own methods of what we call anti-anchoring so that we are ready to explain to the jury why any number that we might suggest would be best and most reasonable. We have learned how to deal with reptilian tactics and actually even use them against the plaintiff whenever appropriate.

We file the appropriate paperwork to make sure that a case, if possible, will be taken out of one of those unfavorable jurisdictions or venues when they are not properly there. We even have developed ways to deal with attorney advertising in our voir dire, as well as during trial so that we can attempt — at least as best possible — to counteract those measures.

I will say though, it's kind of like a drop in the bucket because the plaintiffs are so far ahead of us, even just with the advertising, when somebody sees something a thousand times a day, it's kind of hard to say when you stand up in front of them, disregard that altogether, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain when people have only seen that all the time. So, there are ways, but they are difficult.

KIRSH: I would say, Al, to summarize that, really, it's preparation, preparation, preparation, right? So, a lot of the work that we do is around educating our customers, educating our broker partners, educating our claim professionals, educating judges on this.

Lisa has done a lot of great work in some of the judicial areas where we can, really let judges know what these tactics are and what they're trying to do. A big part of it, is talking to our defense attorneys, as well.

So, you know, knowledge is power. If they understand what these tactics are, what are going to be used, as Lisa mentioned, there's a number of things that we can do proactively to kind of push back on that, if you will, and offset it to answer your question.

ORENDORFF: And adjacent to that, I'm also very curious about the role institutional bias may play in this legal system manipulation “All companies are bad and therefore deserve to be punished.”

KIRSH: Well, it does, and the anti-corporate bias is pretty well documented. And for that, it’s really important that the defense attorneys tell their story. They're typically defense attorneys who are probably more focused on picking apart the plaintiff's case on this. But what's important is storytelling here.

So as the defense can tell its story and when the plaintiff uses comments like "They're putting profits over safety," it's really important for the corporate defendant to really explain how that's not the case and how safety is extremely important to us and to our customers. Also, that no one's interested in seeing somebody get injured, whether it's a work site or a car accident or a premises liability.

So again, there's a number of ways that we can use to really push back against that anti-corporate bias, but it does play a part and it does exist, and we have to be cognizant of it.

Acceptability and effectiveness of courtroom tactics

ORENDORFF: You listed this short [but] powerful list of tactics. How successful are these tactics in swaying jury decisions? I mean, you've explained them so clearly and you would think that some folks would see them as what they are, but obviously they're having an impact.

KIRSH: They are, and the demographics on this are in the plaintiffs’ favor. A number of studies have been done looking at jurors through a demographic lens. And younger jurors are certainly more susceptible. And I think Lisa referenced this, as well, to the argument that you are a protector of your community, of your family, of your society, and that these cases are taking on a larger meaning.

When of course, the whole point of the civil justice system is to address the case you have immediately in front of you. So, when you overlay that with the demographics, I would say that they are very successful. And when you think of reptile theory, for example, it's based on a psychological principle and it's very well documented, right? So, for that reason, a lot of courts have not allowed the reptile theory to be used because they see it for what it is and just a way to manipulate the value of the case.

Again, I'm going to reiterate that the point of our civil justice system is how do we make the plaintiff whole again, not how do we maximize the number, but what will it take to make the plaintiff whole again when it comes to the non-economic damages?

ORENDORFF: Are these types of tactics acceptable to the courts? I mean, they have to know this is happening, right?

BELLINO: So that's a great question, Al. Depending on the jurisdiction, it may very well be acceptable. And I'll give you an example. In New York, anchoring is permitted by statute. It's built right into the civil justice system.

But last year in Texas, the court said, “You know, equating the potential loss of life's enjoyment or of pain and suffering to an expensive painting or a fighter jet or a ballplayer salary, because it's so not related to the case, is not acceptable.”

We can't allow people to be compensated for their injuries based on something that has no reasonable basis in reality. And so, you see completely different avenues here. And of course, then you see the plaintiff taking advantage of whichever avenue will allow them to do whatever tactic will make them the most money. So, it's acceptable in some courts. The question then becomes how far can the envelope be pushed? Same thing with the reptile theory.

Building coalitions for effective tort reform

ORENDORFF: Now, another two-part question or I guess, two-adjacent questions.

The first one is what can be done about this? But the second part to that, maybe a sub-bullet would be, I know that one of the ways to combat this is through legislative reform. Going back to I think a point that Allen made earlier. Do our own legislators know enough about the court system? I know many of them are attorneys, but not all to affect the kind of change that would be necessary to combat this kind of legal system misuse.

KIRSH: So, Al, the first part of your question, I spoke about a little bit ago regarding education. I mean, just as I said, knowledge is power and I think educating our customers and our brokers is such a key part of this, as well as the defense attorney, so that they know about it.

So what can be done is very active. Once a claim occurs, how do we investigate early [to] preserve evidence appropriately. You know, [to] make sure that we're interviewing all the witnesses, just do a solid job of investigating and truly understanding what this accident or injury is about, what the liability is about and doing, I think, the best job that we can do to make sure that we can get to the truth.

You brought up a really good point about legislative reforms. So right before the accident happens, what's the law and what does that take? So, we in our group, and started this up at Zurich a little over three years ago as kind of a social inflation task force. The idea being that what can we do to advocate on behalf of tort reform across the country? And you are right, a big part of that is educating our legislators, letting them know what is happening and what [it] is about.

When I first went to Florida to speak to some legislators on this issue, I had to provide some really specific examples because some of them were not attorneys and just were not familiar with it. And even some who were, maybe they didn't practice in this area. So, providing those specific examples to them, I think really got them to understand what the impact was.

As well as the various studies that show the impact that this has to society as a whole. It's not just an insurance company or a business that's paying. But, with these increased costs, they get passed on to everybody , and that's where the legislators care the most about their constituents. What's the impact on them as well as businesses and the impact on their insurance rates and where that's going.

So, Florida is actually a great example because, in 2023, the legislature and the governor passed historic tort reform legislation, and through that, we've seen some real wins in terms of the insurance environment in Florida. The timing of this is good because just recently the Governor of Georgia, Governor Kemp, had a press conference where he talked about some sweeping tort reform to address a lot of the same issues that they're seeing in Georgia.

So, we're seeing really good momentum on this in terms of how do we level the playing field? No one's looking for an advantage here. What we want is, ‘how do we level the playing field so that both sides can tell their story and that a jury can render a verdict based on the facts and what is due and owing in that case.’

Now, of course, tort reform doesn't happen in a vacuum. So, what we've done as well, is to really lead a coalition, an industry-wide coalition of insurers, of customers, of brokers, a number of tort reform associations to really align on what are the priority jurisdictions, what are the priority issues that we want to focus on.

Since we've been able to start this coalition and get our groups focused on certain areas and certain issues may not agree on everything, and that's okay. But we can do more together than we could individually. So, Lisa, I know you have some thoughts about this as well.

BELLINO: No, I agree with everything that you said, and I think that the more we educate the average person who's going to walk into a courtroom and be a juror, the better off we are.

It's very difficult to move mountains, but if you move them one rock at a time, you're going to make a big difference. And so, we aim to assist our customers by educating them, and, in turn, the word gets spread so that hopefully we're educating the public as well that this is an issue, it needs to be addressed, and it will behoove all of us to be moving in the same direction.

Optimism amidst challenges and the achieving desired changes

ORENDORFF: Lisa, you and Allen have done a great job of laying out the problem, as well as the solutions to address it. As we wrap, I'm curious as to, this is a tall hill to climb here, because it's so entrenched and there's a lot of money involved. How optimistic are you that we can affect the kind of change that we're talking about?

KIRSH: First of all, I'm very optimistic. I'm very excited about Georgia at the moment, so I'll be living off that for a little bit. But you make a good point. I mean, look, the plaintiffs’ bar is very well organized, very well-funded and quite powerful. They're not giving up, as an opponent usually does not.

This is a long game. I mean, we need to continue to focus on those jurisdictions that there's the most imbalance on, and that's what we're doing. But the bottom line is that, as I said, “This affects all of us as citizens and it increases costs for all of us.”

While we absolutely agree that someone who is injured from someone else's negligence is deserving of compensation. The nuclear verdicts that we've seen, which are typically $10 million and above are not reflective of that.

So, I think the more we get, not only legislators, but the public to understand that and to feel that impact, that's where the groundswell of support will come from. So for that reason, we're very optimistic that we can get it done. There's no silver bullet. It doesn't happen overnight. It does take time. But we're seeing that incremental movement. So, it's, it's moving in the positive direction.

ORENDORFF: Lisa, your thoughts?

BELLINO: Again, I agree with Allen. But I have a little bit of a different perspective, and that is, nobody said it had to be fun. Nobody said it had to be easy. It just needs to be done. And so, our job is to get it done.

I am optimistic that we will get our job done because it's not just about Zurich, it's about everybody. We take that very seriously and we wouldn't have picked up this gauntlet if we were only in it for ourselves. So, I am optimistic that we will make a difference. Thank you.

ORENDORFF: Thank you for listening. If you like the show, leave a comment or review wherever you get your favorite podcast or drop us a note at media@zurichna.com. Stay tuned for the final episode in our social inflation miniseries.

We'll discuss premises liability with Rebecca Fozo from Zurich North America and James Beal from Georgians for Lawsuit Reform. This is truly a fascinating topic that you won't want to miss. This has been Future of Risk presented by Zurich North America.

¹ March 5, 2025, Trial Lawyer Advertising Soars to $2.5 Billion, Outpacing Pizza Restaurant Ads in Key Markets, American Tort Reform Association.