Indemnity insurance

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers has had to intervene after two professional indemnity insurers offered firms cover that did not comply with its minimum terms.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers has announced a review of its professional indemnity insurance arrangements in light of a hardening market for cover.

The Supreme Court has provided a “wholly new legal roadmap” for professional negligence after its ruling last week in two linked cases, the Professional Negligence Lawyers Association has said.

A hardening indemnity insurance market and pressure from the Law Society have persuaded the Solicitors Regulation Authority to keep the Solicitors Indemnity Fund open for a further year.

The spring renewal season saw law firms pay a lot more for their PII, with the surge in conveyancing work a concern and contentious probate an increasing problem.

A Surrey law firm has been ordered to pay more than £800,000 in damages for negligence after failing to tell its client that part of a property he thought he had bought had been retained by the seller.

Law firms are using the pandemic as “an excuse” for failing to do things and this could lead to questions from their regulator, an accountant specialising in Solicitors Accounts Rules audits has warned.

A West Midlands law firm is being sued by a client who claims it failed to tell of a “ridiculous” ground rent that doubles every five years – meaning she will be paying £1m a year in 50 years.

Owners of law firms that closed down in the last 20 years have been warned that they face a difficult task in finding insurance to replace the automatic supplementary run-off cover that ends later this year.

The extent to which losses caused by cyber attacks are covered by law firms’ professional indemnity insurance policies is to be clarified by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

National law firm Irwin Mitchell has been granted summary judgment in a professional negligence claim because the retainer prevented its former client assigning his cause of action.

Since abolition of the common renewal date, practices have been free to choose when to renew their professional indemnity insurance. We estimate that around 30-40% now renew between March and April.

The High Court has ordered a defunct Manchester law firm which failed to register a restriction against a house at the Land Registry to pay over £985,000 in damages for negligence.

A High Court judge has refused international firm DLA Piper’s request to stay a €12m professional negligence claim brought against it by a Russian cruise ship company.

A sole practitioner in his 70s has been struck off after practising for over six months without professional indemnity insurance, despite telling others he had cover.