Jonathan J. Wilkofsky is our founding and managing partner. He has been litigating insurance coverage and property damage claims for more than 42 years. He has represented victims of catastrophes occurring all over the world including the “Monrovia Fires” in West Africa as well as one of the largest gas pipeline explosions in the country in the “Hellgate” case, which led to a multi-million dollar settlement during trial. Mr. Wilkofsky, who has yet to lose a jury verdict, has represented several thousand victims of insurance company misconduct.

Mr. Wilkofsky was lead counsel in the matter of Riordan v. Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Company. That case, tried before the Chief Judge of the Southern District of New York and argued before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, was the first case in the history of the State of New York where an insured successfully prevailed against an insurance carrier for attorneys’ fees and punitive damages for deceptive acts and practices.

Additionally, Mr. Wilkofsky was lead trial counsel in Newark Center Building Co. v. Atlas Assurance Company, which represents one of the largest property damage verdicts in New York Supreme Court history at 12.6 million dollars. The case involved the asbestos contamination and resulting abandonment of the former New Jersey state office building in Newark, New Jersey.

Mr. Wilkofsky won a verdict in excess of $1 million against Allstate Insurance Company for damage caused to a home by a supersonic Concorde aircraft taking off from JFK. The trial involved the testimony of six engineers and required proof that sonic energy had cracked a steel and concrete waterfront home from more than three miles away.

Mr. Wilkofsky has been the Executive Director and General Counsel of the New York Public Adjusters Association since 1994 and the New Jersey Public Adjusters Association since its founding in 2005.

Mr. Wilkofsky has also drafted insurance-related legislation and insurance regulations to better protect the consumer. In 2014, Governor Cuomo signed into law legislation proposed and championed by Mr. Wilkofsky which clarifies that scope of loss is appraisable in New York. This legislation will significantly benefit generations of insurance consumers. In 2010, Governor Paterson signed a bill drafted by Mr. Wilkofsky creating an expedited special proceeding to enforce the insurance policy’s appraisal provision. He also drafted and spearheaded the passage of legislation requiring language to be added to every property policy issued in New York which mandates the insurance company to share their experts’ reports upon demand by the insured (Insurance Law §3407(a)). The bill was signed into law by Governor Pataki on September 15, 2001 to assist victims of 9/11, and its protections remain in place today. Mr. Wilkofsky drafted and lobbied for the passage of a law requiring minimum standards and mandatory continuing education for insurance adjusters, which passed the legislature and was signed by Governor Pataki in 1998.

In 2013, Governor Cuomo signed legislation drafted by Mr. Wilkofsky protecting consumers from dishonest public adjusters and contractors. It provides for avoiding conflicts of interest, transparency, and professionalizing the adjusting industry.

He has lectured for the New York State Bar Association on the subject of trial tactics, and has spoken on the subjects of “The Appraisal Process” and the role of the public adjuster in the adjustment process and the Insurance Laws and Regulations of New York. He is also the author of the legal treatise The Law and Procedure of Insurance Appraisal, for which he received the 2004 Cordish Writing Award from the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters. The third edition was published at the end of 2015. In December 2007, Mr. Wilkofsky was named Person of the Year by the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters, where he served on the Board of Directors from 2014 to 2015.

Since 2013, Mr. Wilkofsky has been named annually to the Super Lawyers list of top attorneys and has also been listed as a top 100 trial lawyer by the National Trial Lawyers Association.

In 2016, Mr. Wilkofsky was named General Counsel to the Insurance Appraisal and Umpire Association (IAUA) and has worked to expand, train, and nationalize the roster of certified appraisers and neutrals to better protect consumers and the appraisal process throughout the United States. Mr. Wilkofsky has been a featured speaker on insurance coverage issues at the First Party Claims Conference held in Rhode Island and California annually since 2007.

Among the leading voices for consumers in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, Mr. Wilkofsky was invited to testify on behalf of consumers at the legislative hearings investigating the insurance industry’s response to the storm and at the roundtables held by the New York State Assembly Insurance Committee thereafter.

In 2019, the government of Puerto Rico adopted Wilkofsky’s theories through legislation and executive orders intended to help fairly resolve tens of thousands of Hurricane Maria claims, and he was asked to develop and present the program to train and certify the first umpires on the island, as well as the island’s judges sitting in Puerto Rico’s Specialized Insurance Courts. Thousands of claimants, municipalities, and the insurance industry are benefitting.

Mr. Wilkofsky is currently working to win passage of a bad-faith bill in Albany, which is pending in the legislature and is needed to better protect insurance consumers.