Law Firms for Insurers in 2026: A Specialist Bar Staffs the Deals

General counsel at insurers who draw up a list of law firms for insurance companies often start from the firms with the largest corporate and capital markets practices. Sartori & Partners data show why that list falls short. Of the 802 insurance deals in the 12 months to October 2026, insurance and reinsurance lawyers were credited on 29.9%, a practice that appears on only 0.7% of all dated deals. London is the second city for this work, and it carries more of it than it does for banks or asset managers. Volume was flat, so the open question for an insurer is not capacity but who on the team knows the sector.

In the Sartori & Partners deal record, insurance and reinsurance lawyers were credited on 29.9% of insurance deals and on 0.7% of all dated deals, a share many times the market's. No other practice moves that far. Capital markets lawyers appear on 27.1% of insurance deals against 26.4% across the market, and corporate and M&A lawyers on 25.2% against 23.3%. Those two generalist practices look much the same for insurers as for any other client. The specialist practice is what sets the sector apart.

The concentration also runs the other way. Of every deal in the record that carried insurance and reinsurance lawyers, 75.7% was an insurance deal, so this bar works mostly for one sector. Intellectual property shows the opposite pattern: its lawyers appear on 11.1% of all deals and on 2.7% of insurance deals.

The practical consequence is simple. A panel picked on corporate and capital markets volume will cover the transaction mechanics and can miss the lawyers who know reserving, solvency capital, reinsurance structures and the regulators that approve a change of control. In a pitch, ask each firm to name the insurance and reinsurance partners who will work on the matter, not only the deal lead, and check that those partners have sat on insurer deals in the past year.

Sartori & Partners data also show the cities that deal lawyers worked from. Lawyers in New York worked on 40.2% of insurance deals and lawyers in London on 22.9%, ahead of Washington at 13.6% and Chicago at 10.7%. For banks and financial institutions, the London figure is 16.0%; for asset managers and funds it is 18.1%. The insurance share sits 6.9 points above the bank share. Among the financial sectors, only financial sponsors show a higher London share, at 29.5%. A deal staffed from two cities counts in both, so these city shares overlap and their total runs past the sector's deal count.

The second tier differs as well. Chicago reaches 10.7% of insurance deals against 5.6% for banks, while Frankfurt and Paris carry less of insurer work, at 3.6% and 3.9%, than of bank work, at 5.3% and 5.2%. Washington, central to fund work at 27.0%, sits at 13.6% for insurers. For an insurer with a London market business or reinsurance placed through London, this sets one plain test: the panel needs London partners who do insurance work, not a London office that handles general corporate matters.

By deal type, disputes and investigations appear on 30.2% of insurance deals against 25.0% of all deals, and M&A on 24.4% against 19.3%. Capital markets sits close to the market, at 26.6% against 25.7%. Private equity deals are rarer for insurers: 2.9% against 3.7% across all sectors.

The dispute share shapes the budget. An insurer's outside counsel spend is not only transactional: coverage, reinsurance and regulatory disputes run beside the deals, and the firm that handled an acquisition is not always the one with the bench to defend the claim that follows. With disputes on 30.2% of insurance deals, keep a disputes adviser on the panel with its own insurance credentials, and ask how the deal and dispute teams hand work across when the same portfolio produces both.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates advised the most insurance deals over the 12 months, alone in the band of 41-60 deals advised. Six firms share the next band of 21-40, among them Slaughter and May, a London firm. Only four of the ten also appear in the top 10 for all sectors: Davis Polk & Wardwell, Sidley Austin, A&O Shearman and Latham & Watkins. Kirkland & Ellis, 3rd across all sectors, is not in the insurance list.

Lateral hiring points to yet another group. Over 36 months, the firms that hired the most lawyers with an insurance focus were Clyde & Co, Kennedys Law and Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, and none of them is among the ten most active insurance deal advisers. The specialist bench and the deal list overlap less than an insurer might assume. Hire the deal firm for the transaction, and make sure the insurance and reinsurance partners on the team have a sector record of their own, whichever firm they sit in.

Insurance deal volume held flat (+1.3%) in the 12 months to September 2026, at 793 deals against 783 a year earlier. The whole deal market rose 10.6% over the same windows. Insurance is a small sector by count, at 1.7% of all dated deals, but not a small one by size: 20.4% of insurance deals disclosed a value, at a median of $750m.

Steady insurer volume inside a rising market has one clear effect. Insurer mandates compete for partner time with a growing flow of other work at the same large firms. Lock in named partners and a stable team at engagement, agree fees for repeat work such as reinsurance renewals and regulatory filings, and ask how the firm will staff a deal that lands in a busy quarter.

Build the panel around the specialist practice. Insurance and reinsurance lawyers are credited on 29.9% of insurer deals, so require each firm to field them by name and show their recent insurer work. Test London directly: lawyers there worked on 22.9% of insurance deals, more than for banks or asset managers, and a firm without insurance partners in London covers only part of the work. Keep a disputes adviser beside the deal firm, and do not assume the firms that run the most deals across all sectors are the ones with the deepest insurance bench. Use the flat volume to negotiate continuity and price. For the hiring side of the same sector, see the companion report on insurance lawyer moves.