October 1, 1979 – 2022 Another Anniversary

Forty three years ago, October 1, 1979 I left the world of the employed and became an entrepreneur by opening my own law firm. The law practice was incorporated shortly thereafter as Barry Zalma, Inc.

When I opened for business on October 1, 1979 I had no clients and no certainty that I would have any in the future. I had borrowed money from the bank to carry me through the first six months and was concerned about my ability to pay the loan with my third child about to be born.

Much to my surprise and pleasure, on October 1, 1979, at 8:10 a.m., the best claims handler in the London market, Alan Warboys, called from London and provided me with my first case as an independent lawyer to represent Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London. He, and the Lloyd’s Underwriters he represented, showed faith in me as a lawyer and insurance expert. Alan is now, and will forever be, my law firm’s first client and a good friend.

Since January 2, 1972, I practiced law in California until I turned 75 and asked the California Bar to make my license to practice law inactive. To those of you, in addition to Alan, who have honored me by retaining me as your lawyer, thank you for a long, productive and successful legal career. Since 2015 and in the future I will limit my work to acting as an insurance claims handling, insurance fraud and insurance bad faith consultant, expert witness, educator and author. That work continues to keep me busy at least 40 hours a week.

I am not retired. I am fully recovered from open heart surgery and continue to work five days a week. I am only slowing from my time as a lawyer by limiting my work to consulting and testifying as an expert. I am now 80-years-old and I no longer practice law. I used that expertise when I testified in a deposition that helped resolve a massive claim of a motion picture company seeking benefits from their insurer as a result of Covid-19 shut downs and just before the Pandemic I testified in an Idaho trial court for a policyholder who was not treated well by his insurer and received a favorable verdict.

I expect to continue working, using my 55 years experience in the insurance claims industry, forever, or, at least, until I reach the century mark my mother reached before she passed away.

I will continue to publish, twice a month, Zalma’s Insurance Fraud Letter and will publish daily to my blog, Zalma on Insurance, digests of recent cases.

I have now made available for anyone interested in being a claims professional a complete Insurance Claims Library available as paperbacks or Kindle books at Amazon.com where I have recently published How to Acquire, Understand, and Make a Successful Claim on a Commercial Property Insurance Policy, The Tort of Bad Faith, The Equitable Remedy of Rescission of Insurance, Insurance Fraudsters Deserve no Quarter, Zalma on Insurance Claims Third Edition, and many more. For detail go to http://zalma.com/blog/insurance-claims-library/ where you can also find insurance books published by the American Bar Association, Thomson Reuters, and Full Court Press/fastcase.com.

I will continue to serve you as a claims handling and bad faith consultant, expert witness, author, educator, arbitrator or mediator.

Since my firm has been reduced to only me I will always answer the phone or respond to your inquiries by telephone, e-mail, fax or even via the U.S. Postal Service.
Thank you again for your faith in me and my firm, Barry Zalma, Inc.

Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE, now limits his practice to service as an insurance consultant specializing in insurance coverage, insurance claims handling, insurance bad faith and insurance fraud almost equally for insurers and policyholders. He practiced law in California for more than 44 years as an insurance coverage and claims handling lawyer and more than 54 years in the insurance business. He is available at http://www.zalma.com and zalma@zalma.com.

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Write to Mr. Zalma at zalma@zalma.com; http://www.zalma.com; http://zalma.com/blog; daily articles are published at https://zalma.substack.com. Go to the podcast Zalma On Insurance at https://anchor.fm/barry-zalma; Follow Mr. Zalma on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bzalma; Go to Barry Zalma at Rumble.com.

Now available Barry Zalma’s newest book, The Tort of Bad Faith, available here. The new book is available as a Kindle book, a paperback or as a hard cover and a new book on Commercial Property Insurance purchase and claims that is now available as a Kindle book here, paperback here and as a hardcover here.