Indemnity insurance

Small law firms have been saving up to 25% on their indemnity insurance premiums following the arrival of a new insurer from Qatar, broker Lockton has said. Brian Boehmer estimated that firms had saved on average around 10%.

City solicitors have outlined their deep scepticism about plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to reform professional indemnity insurance rules, warning that “the solicitor brand should not be placed at risk” without very good reason.

Paul Philip, chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, has hit back after the SRA’s latest indemnity insurance plans were fiercely criticised by the Law Society. He said the regulator had made “absolutely no new recommendations”.

Solicitors’ professional indemnity insurers cannot aggregate multiple related claims when the terms of the transactions are not conditional or dependent upon each other, the High Court has decided in a ruling said to protect law firms from financial risk.

A judge has told a litigant-in-person that a road traffic accident she was involved in was not to blame for her failure to secure a training contract. Judge Walden-Smith said the “sad fact” was that many “competent individuals” failed to obtain a contract.

A two-partner central London law firm has succeeded in striking out a professional negligence claim for over £8m. Master Bowles said the claimants had allowed the proceedings to sink into “indefinite abeyance”.

The High Court has dismissed a claim against a firm of solicitors, despite finding it negligent in failing to raise the absence of a covenant in restraint of competition during the purchase of a commercial property. It considered the lengths that a solicitor is expected to go to beyond facilitating the immediate transaction.

An end to a compulsory minimum level of professional indemnity insurance (PII) and replacing the compensation fund with an insurance policy are among the ideas for reform of client protection arrangements put forward by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

A law firm with offices in Italy and England was under a duty to warn British and Irish property investors of the risks of investing in a part of Italy associated with organised crime, the High Court has ruled.

The High Court has dismissed a claim of professional negligence against a firm of solicitors because, although the claimant successfully established liability, no loss or damage was found to be have caused.