As a respected senior counsel with over 35 years of experience in specialty lines coverage and litigation, David Wilson is a trusted advisor to many of Canada’s leading commercial insurers. David’s practice focuses on professional liability insurance, directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance and fidelity insurance.
David has extensive experience in the defence of professionals under liability policies, with particular emphasis on engineers, architects, financial advisors, mortgage brokers, insurance agents and real estate agents. He also provides coverage advice in this area. His objective in every case is to secure the most efficient result at the lowest cost.
David is also regularly retained in connection with Canadian and multi-jurisdictional D&O disputes, either to defend directors and officers; provide coverage advice; or monitor litigation (including, in particular, class actions).
David has practiced in the highly-specialized area of fidelity and commercial crime insurance since the 1980s. He has significant experience in claims under fidelity policies and financial institution bonds. He has provided coverage analysis to fidelity insurers and has litigated first-party claims, including claims under Ontario’s Credit Union Bonding Program. David has also successfully subrogated on behalf of fidelity insurers against defaulters, co-conspirators, auditors and financial institutions, both in Canada and internationally. He has written on coverage and fraud recovery issues for the Canadian Journal of Insurance Law, National Banking Law Review and other publications.
David also has significant experience in reinsurance disputes and environmental litigation. Early in his career, he represented the federal Superintendent of Insurance in several major reinsurance disputes, and later acted for the Superintendent of Insurance as liquidator of Northumberland General Insurance Company on a number of complex reinsurance issues, including allegations of misrepresentation and non-disclosure, together with denials of coverage on the basis of specific treaty exclusions. David also has significant non-insurance commercial litigation experience including, in particular, commercial tenancy disputes.
After finishing law school at the age of 22, David practiced with one of Blaney McMurtry’s predecessor firms until that firm merged with Blaneys in 1986.