Saxe Doernberger & Vita, Fenchurch Law, Wesolowski Abogados and CLIR & Fenchurch have combined to launch SDV Fenchurch, a global law firm built exclusively to represent policyholders.

Structured as a Swiss verein, the new firm unites dedicated insurance-recovery practices across eight jurisdictions spanning the US, UK, France, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Turkey and Singapore.

A crowded field, but a genuinely different model within it

SDV Fenchurch is not entering an empty market.

Global firms including Reed Smith and Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer has maintained large, well-ranked policyholder insurance practices spanning the US, UK and continental Europe. Cozen O'Connor, meanwhile, runs one of the largest insurance law departments of any US firm, with roughly 200 attorneys, but works predominantly for insurers rather than policyholders, having added five more insurer-side litigators from Faegre Drinker to its Global Insurance Department earlier in 2026.

What differentiates SDV Fenchurch from most of that competition isn't scale, several larger firms have bigger insurance practices overall, but exclusivity. Reed Smith and Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer represent policyholders as a significant part of broader, full-service practices that in some cases still touch insurer-side work elsewhere in the firm.

SDV Fenchurch's pitch, echoed by boutiques like Cohen Ziffer Frenchman & McKenna in the US, is that a firm acting solely for policyholders avoids even the perception of a conflicted institutional loyalty, a distinction that matters most to sophisticated corporate buyers weighing whether their coverage counsel might, somewhere else in the same firm, be advising an insurer on a similar dispute.

A relationship that grew from partnership into merger

The launch is the culmination of a relationship that developed over roughly two years. SDV and London-based Fenchurch Law first announced a formal partnership in mid-2024, giving policyholders dedicated representation across four major insurance centers: Asia-Pacific, Scandinavia, the UK and the US. Fenchurch's managing partner said then that the tie-up marked a step toward having a presence in every region of the world by 2030, a timeline the new verein structure now appears to be accelerating.

Tracy Saxe, chair of SDV Fenchurch and founder of SDV, said that for 30 years the firms have believed policyholders deserve lawyers whose loyalty is never divided, and that every firm joining SDV Fenchurch shares the goal of leveling the playing field for policyholders while performing the highest-quality legal work in the world.

Why a verein structure specifically

The firm chose to organize as a Swiss verein, a structure that lets member firms operate for clients as a single, coordinated practice while remaining separately regulated legal entities within their own jurisdictions.

That approach allows SDV Fenchurch to expand into new insurance markets while preserving the entrepreneurial cultures that built each founding firm's reputation locally, and lets the group be selective about membership, requiring an exclusive policyholder focus and a top-tier local reputation from any firm that joins.

David Pryce, chair of SDV Fenchurch and founder of Fenchurch Law, said insurance disputes have been global for a long time even though the counsel available to policyholders has remained largely national, citing the example of a US manufacturer's policy governed by New York law but resolved through arbitration in London.

Pryce said SDV Fenchurch means multinational policyholders can, for the first time, access specialist representation from a firm that is both genuinely international and staffed by lawyers with deep local roots in each jurisdiction.

While SDV Fenchurch's lawyers are experienced litigators and arbitrators, the firm says a significant share of its work today is advisory, strengthening policy language before a loss occurs, reviewing endorsements, and adding legal weight to coverage negotiations before any dispute materializes.

That model, working closely with brokers rather than around them, is not unique to SDV Fenchurch, several of the larger rival practices also emphasize broker relationships in their own marketing, but Saxe said the firm increasingly sits alongside a client's broker at renewal to explain what a new endorsement might mean if a claim arises years later, something now possible across a US policy, a London policy and a Singapore arbitration all within one firm.

Built for high-risk sectors, with room to grow

The platform's deepest expertise sits in construction and energy, where business interruption losses can run into hundreds of millions of dollars, alongside strong practices in directors' and officers' liability, transactional risk, real estate, and marine cargo.

Pryce said eight jurisdictions is a starting point rather than a destination, with the firm's ambition being unambiguous recognition as the leading policyholder firm in the world, and that the group expects to explore opportunities in Australia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America soon.

Saxe added that after thirty years of growing entirely through organic growth and internal promotion, SDV Fenchurch is now open for the first time to lateral partners and established teams.

SDV Fenchurch's real test will be competing for mandates against firms like Reed Smith and Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, which already have comparable or larger international footprints and well-established rankings in the same practice area.

Whether "loyalty never divided" proves a decisive advantage over an already-strong, larger competitor's scale and existing relationships is likely to be settled by which firms multinational policyholders and their brokers actually choose for the next major cross-border coverage dispute, not by either side's own description of its positioning.