Matthew Ford

Practice Areas

Matthew leads the London Casualty Large Loss team, and is a lead partner in the firm’s Travel and International group. He has many years of experience in defending complex, highly sensitive and high value claims in both UK and International Casualty context.

Matthew is the legal advisor of choice for clients operating across a broad range of industry sectors, including construction, leisure and retail, manufacturing, F&B, transport/logistics and travel / international jurisdiction matters. His day to day practice includes EL/PL liability disputes, fatal accidents, complex catastrophic injuries - including brain injuries and spinal injuries – and chronic pain claims.

He regularly advises insurers, brokers and corporate clients, and is focused on meeting the goals of all parties; always considering the needs and priorities of each, then working closely with them to ensure the most advantageous outcome is achieved for everyone. Matthew is approachable, responsive and always ensures the highest quality of service from his team.

In addition to claims, Matthew regularly advises clients on legal risk management and claims defensibility. He also provides thought leadership and regularly shares knowledge with clients on various risks and emerging issues.

Matthew is known for working as a team with tour operator clients, brokers and insurers to give a fantastic service, getting the right outcome in every claim, always having an eye on avoiding future claims, and protecting his clients’ brand.

He is a market leader amongst travel practitioners, having advised many of the largest tour operators and insurers and successfully challenged numerous high value and high profile travel claims. He also regularly advises on travel insurance policies; both in relation to coverage and liability. Matthew is recommended in Legal 500 UK as having “considerable technical expertise in representing tour operators…. A true leader – calm, collated, commercially astute and able to diffuse the hottest of temperatures.”

His day to day practice includes large loss and catastrophic injuries, complex illness claims, class actions, fatal accidents, agency claims and indemnity/recovery actions. He manages a specialist team including travel abuse, travel fraud, international Regulatory and cross-border RTA sub-groups, to offer expert advice in all niche areas of travel liability. He has had an extensive portfolio of cases, including some of the most sensitive, complex and high value claims in the market.

Matthew is a specialist in crisis management for tour operators and insurers, and had advised numerous clients on crisis planning, ‘day one’ incident management and liaison with stakeholders at the incident location. Matthew is a member of AIRMIC, is at the forefront of the industry in educating clients on emerging risks, trends and new Regulations.