Kelly (Nickerson) Bialas

Kelly (Nickerson) Bialas provides solutions to complex challenges facing participants in the insurance industry. Ms. Bialas has 17 years of experience in providing litigation consulting, financial advisory, forensic accounting and financial investigation support to clients. She has specific expertise with complex insurance and reinsurance litigation, damage quantification, representations and warranties insurance claims, and remediation advisory. Her experience spans multiple industries, with a focus on insurance and reinsurance, including property and casualty, life, and financial guaranty.

Ms. Bialas provides clients with advice involving expert witness services, complex insurance and reinsurance issues, damage quantification, accountant liability, insolvency causation, post-acquisition disputes and representations and warranties insurance claims. She is knowledgeable in U.S. generally accepted auditing standards (“GAAS”), U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”), statutory accounting principles, internal control frameworks, and various damage calculation methodologies. Her representative experience includes determining the merit and value of claims made under representations and warranties insurance policies, evaluating whether audits were performed in accordance with GAAS, analyzing liability and damage issues related to breach of contract and post-acquisition disputes, advising clients on accounting and financial reporting matters, performing outsourced internal audit functions, and providing transaction advisory related to insurance and reinsurance-related financial and operational issues.

Ms. Bialas also provides forensic investigation and remediation support to her clients facing various regulatory, financial and operational challenges. She has performed independent investigations related to suspicions of fraud and regulatory non-compliance on behalf of boards of directions and executive management of insurance holding companies, agencies and carriers. In addition, she assists clients with internal challenges spanning from addressing accounting and financial reporting issues to providing targeted audits of functions across the insurance value chain. As part of this work, she led her clients through the remediation process and operational change.

Ms. Bialas holds a B.B.A. degree in accounting from Loyola College in Maryland. She is a Certified Public Accountant in New York and Certified Fraud Examiner. Ms. Bialas serves as an advisory council member of the Insurance Federation of New York, Inc. – Emerging Leaders and is on the President’s Advisory Council of the Society of Insurance Financial Management.