Andres Avila

Education

• University of Connecticut School of Law, with Honors, LLM, 2017
• Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, JD, 2009

Andres is a special counsel in Kennedys’ New York office. He is a seasoned insurance and reinsurance coverage attorney that advises major domestic and international carriers on directors and officers, professional, cyber, employment practices, environmental and fiduciary/ERISA liability, as well as financial institutions, commercial crime, trade credit & political risk and insurance bad faith. Andres also advises clients on Latin American insurance and reinsurance coverage matters. Andres obtains cost-efficient results for his clients through pre-litigation resolution, mediation, arbitration and other Alternative Dispute Resolution methods, as well as litigation in both state and federal courts.

Andres has also represented clients in insurance arbitrations involving retrospectively rated premium and loss-sensitive insurance programs and has defended professional liability claims against managing general agents. Before becoming an attorney in the United States, Andres began his legal career in 2010 in the Miami and London offices of Kennedys, focusing his practice on Latin American insurance and reinsurance coverage matters. Prior to re-joining Kennedys in 2023, Andres represented and advised large construction policyholders in coverage disputes under builder’s risk, commercial general liability, and property policies, in addition to Owner Controlled Insurance Programs (OCIP) and Contractor Controlled Insurance Programs (CCIP), all of which gave him unique insight from the policyholder’s perspective to assist carriers when faced with such losses.

During law school, Andres was a contributing editor for the Connecticut Insurance Law Journal, the world’s only academic law review dedicated exclusively to the publication of original research on the law relating to insurance, risk and responsibility. He also received the Insurance Law Center's LLM Award for Distinguished Academic Performance in the field of insurance law and dedicated service to the community.

Andres serves as Co-Chair of the Young Lawyers’ Subcommittee of the ABA Insurance Coverage Litigation Section.

Andres is bilingual in English and Spanish, and is conversational in Portuguese and French.