Experience 

Kenneth Pierce is Co-Head of the Insurance and Reinsurance Group in the US, and is a senior member of the firm’s Global Insurance and Reinsurance Industry Group.  He has more than 20 years’ experience as an insurance and reinsurance professional, serving the industry as an attorney and as an investment banker.  He has structured numerous complex insurance and reinsurance transactions, with a focus on transactions at the convergence of insurance and the capital markets, including sidecars, insurance-linked securities, co-and modco life reinsurance, transformer and structured insurance and reinsurance products.

Ken’s experience encompasses virtually every type of insurance and reinsurance product and structure, including property and property catastrophe, casualty, life, annuity, variable products, surety, mortgage insurance, financial guaranty and other lines.  He has advised clients on legal, regulatory and other issues in the establishment of life, annuity, property and casualty insurers and reinsurers, and he counsels clients on a wide array of insurance and reinsurance regulatory matters, including life settlements, premium finance, and issues at the intersection of derivatives and insurance.

Ken’s experience also includes substantial litigation and arbitration work.  He has handled all facets of many complex reinsurance disputes, arbitrations and litigations.

Prior to joining Mayer Brown in 2009, Ken was Co-Head of Morgan Stanley’s reinsurance solutions practice in the Global Capital Markets Division.  In that role, he co-managed a business unit responsible for securitization of insurance risk (e.g., cat bonds and sidecars), structured reinsurance solutions and various other proprietary products in the insurance and reinsurance space, including GICs and annuities.  Prior to Morgan Stanley, Ken was an equity partner at two major New York law firms, and was also an investment banker with Lehman Brothers.

Notable Engagements 

• Represented the investor group in the Timicuan Re II sidecar reinsurer launched in May 2009 by Bermudian reinsurer Renaissance Re; reinsurance counsel on Flatiron, Bay Point, and several other sidecar transactions during the post-Katrina hard market in 2005-2006.
• Lead structurer for innovative event-linked reinsurance credit protection product, providing coverage against credit risk to the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund for several primary insurers.
• Daily, ongoing advice for a client’s life and variable annuity insurance and reinsurance business, addressing multiple legal, regulatory and statutory accounting issues as well as product and transaction structuring.
• Structured, negotiated and drafted large modified coinsurance (“Modco”) agreement and related contracts for the reinsurer in connection a major life insurer’s acquisition of a life insurance business.
• Reinsurance counseling and advisory work in structuring and drafting various reinsurance and other agreements in connection with XXX and AXXX transactions.
• Developed and structured complex separate account group annuity and GIC product.
• Lead structurer for MaRI, an innovative primary insurer sidecar that raised capacity for ACE in connection with Marsh clients.
• Reinsurance counsel and advisor on several property catastrophe bonds, advising on issues including reinsurance structure, contract drafting and regulatory.
• Reinsurance legal work in connection with various cat swaps, ILWs, and cat-related derivatives.
• Advised two major investment banks on legal, regulatory and business planning issues in the establishment of their respective Bermuda reinsurer and transformer vehicles.
• Advised major investment bank on legal, regulatory and other issues in connection with the acquisition and change of control of a domestic life insurance company.

Education 

Harvard Law School, JD, 1984 • Brown University, Honor’s Program, AB, magna cum laude, 1981; Phi Beta Kappa

Admitted

• New York, 1999
• District of Columbia, 1990
• Florida, 1984
• US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• US Supreme Court