Business Issues
By Kevin Cunningham
The Business of Suing
Plaintiffs’ hidden investors drive up crane owners’ litigation costs
Editor’ s Note: This is the second of three articles by insurance industry expert Kevin Cunningham that address the malady of rapidly rising insurance costs in the crane and heavy-haul industries. The first article appeared in the September 2025 edition of Crane Hot Line; Look for the third article in the November edition.
As the follow-up to“ Crane Insurance Market Conditions”( Crane Hot Line, September 2025, pages 32-34), this article further discloses litigation factors that are hurting today’ s crane insurance buyers.
One of those factors is firms that make a business of secretly funding accident litigation.
Another is a dramatic increase in plaintiff-lawyer advertising that raises clients’ hopes of absurdly huge monetary settlements.
Both of those factors are making crane insurance more expensive, and in some cases unaffordable, for crane owners.
National research from the American Tort Reform Association( ATRA) shows that 2024 saw plaintiff legal service providers spend more money on television, radio and outdoor advertising than ever before. Here are three telling statistics.
• The number of TV ads has increased by more than 44 % since 2017
• Radio ads surged to over 6.8 million in 2024 – up 217 % from 2017
• Outdoor advertising, including billboards, rose by over 260 % since 2017.
Dark Money Driving
Those dramatically rising numbers of ads can be attributed to third-party litigation funding( TPLF), which is driving legal system abuse, driving up insurance claims and delaying standard settlements.
TPLF enables plaintiff attorneys to over-promise potential clients big paydays, which creates unrealistic expectations.
Those inflated expectations can make it hard for insurers to negotiate a reasonable out-of-court settlement, and it can also prolong the time it takes to settle, which influences the way jurors process facts.
According to ATRA, if an insurer takes a long time to settle a claim, jurors often see the insurance company as unsympathetic or stingy, even if the plaintiff’ s lawyers are asking for unreasonable or exorbitant compensation.
If jurors see the insurance company as being unreasonable, they are more likely to award the plaintiff higher punitive damages.
TPLF, also known as“ Dark Money,” comes when investors finance lawsuits in exchange for a portion of the settlement.
According to the Insurance Information Institute’ s September 2025 briefing report, TPLF, or Dark Money, is a major force driving the surge of massive litigation settlements in recent court cases.
Lawyers have an ethical obligation to exercise independent judgment and zealously represent their clients’ interests.
A TPLF investor, on the other hand, is purely a profit-seeker gambling on a“ Dark Money opportunity,” without any ethical or
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October 2025 • www. cranehotline. com