Indemnity insurance

The Bar Standards Board has doubled its prediction of how many entities it expects to be overseeing by the end of 2015 after receiving Legal Services Board approval to regulate businesses.

The Supreme Court has backed a law firm’s arguments that, following a breach of trust, it should have to pay in damages only the amount which the lender would have lost if the breach had not occurred.

Many of the 1,863 law firms e-mailed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority last Thursday that their apparent lack of professional indemnity insurance meant they would have to move into a period of shut-down had cover after all, it emerged.

Nearly half of law firms – 47% – secured cheaper indemnity insurance this year, a survey has suggested. Half of these obtained “significant” reductions. It also indicated a move by firms from unrated to rated insurers.

Firms that have not secured professional indemnity insurance have until tomorrow to notify the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Despite the abolition of the single indemnity renewal date last year, 1 October remained the deadline for more than 90% of law firms.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel has called into question the existing minimum indemnity cover limit of £500,000 for barristers and called for more research before the limit was extended to firms regulated by the Bar Standards Board.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has published its first decision fining a law firm for not closing down properly after failure to secure indemnity cover by the end of the extended policy period (EPP).

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has hit back at criticism from the Legal Services Board (LSB) over its plans to cut the minimum compulsory cover for law firms from £2m to £500,000.

Two barristers caught up in high-profile disciplinary actions have referred complaints about lack of funding from the Bar Mutual indemnity fund to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), it has emerged.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority expects its compensation fund to have to pay out up to £2.5m in the next practising year to cover the cost of negligence claims against uninsured law firms, it has emerged.

The Legal Services Board has been praised for extending the time limit for its decision on whether to approve plans to cut the minimum indemnity limit for law firms, which meant the Solicitors Regulation Authority was unable to implement it this year.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has insisted that a lower minimum limit for indemnity insurance would “attract a discount in premiums” for law firms as it sought to counter widespread criticism of its plans.

Rated insurers may be reluctant to offer law firms indemnity limits as low as the £500,000 proposed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), a leading insurance broker has warned.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has issued a call for evidence on its indemnity insurance reforms, as the Legal Services Board (LSB) continues its deliberations on whether or not to approve a cut in the minimum cover limit.

Sole practitioners have warned of “dire consequences” if the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) goes ahead with its plans to cut the minimum limit for indemnity cover from £2m to £500,000.