Seeking cover: as many as 3,200 firms could be seeking new insurers this year
When the profession ditched the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF), a compelling reason for the move was that many good firms were paying for the failures of the few. Now, a decade later, solicitors are back in exactly the same position. Only, the ‘few’ could become substantially more over the next few months.
‘The assigned risks pool (ARP) is now regarded as the root of all evil,’ says Martin Ellis, head of the solicitors’ practice group at broker Prime Professions. After several years when there were no more than 30 firms in the ARP – the last resort for firms which cannot find cover on the open market – in 2008/9 there were 140, some 259 in 2009/10 and, it is feared, many more joining them this October.
Read the rest of this feature, written by Legal Futures Editor Neil Rose, on the Law Society Gazette website here.
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