Paul O'Connor

Paul is recognised as one of the leading commercial insurance lawyers in the UK. He specialises in advising businesses, of all shapes and sizes, on how best to use insurance to generate value and mitigate risk.

His expertise includes Captive Insurance Companies, Protected Cell Companies and other alternative risk transfer (ART) facilities, as well as the application of onshore and offshore regulation to such structures. Paul has extensive experience of drafting and interpreting policy wordings and the conduct of policy negotiation on behalf of insurers, brokers and policyholders. His skillset includes transactional insurance covers (such as Warranty & Indemnity, Tax Liability, Environmental Impairment and Contingent Liability) and their application to corporate and commercial projects and transactions. From his experience of drafting insuring obligations in PFI projects and joint ventures, Paul has developed a special interest in the use of project specific insurance structures (separate from the parties’ own insurance arrangements) in commercial agreements and the drafting of insurance provisions to reflect this. For many years, Paul has been a Director of two substantial Reinsurance Companies, acting as General Counsel, advising on regulatory and commercial issues. He is also a Director of and General Counsel to a large Managing General Agent (MGA). Prior to co-founding O'Connors, Paul was National Head of Commercial Insurance at Eversheds. He regularly delivers workshops on the practical application of insurance in a commercial context. He is a member of the Chartered Insurance Institute and of Airmic.