case study 4

Renewal refused due to "poor” claim experience

Our client, a firm of solicitors, with 12 employees, had renewal of their Professional Indemnity policy refused, (a formal, “Declinature,” issued by their existing insurers), allegedly due to a poor claims experience.
Because this cover is a mandatory requirement for all solicitors to be permitted to practice, they were faced with the unenviable choice of issuing redundancy notices to their staff, or of joining the Assigned Risks Pool, (ARP), of the Solicitors Regulatory Authority and paying 25%+ of their total fee income for the privilege.
The biggest problem here, was the fact that the previous insurer was formally declining to offer renewal terms, which is treated as the, “kiss of death,” by any other potential insurer.
We were able to identify, through precise scrutiny of the insurers prepared claims history and considerable telephone and email fact finding, that the insurers had made several small, but significant, errors in the preparation of the claims history, which, whilst it was essentially correct, allowed us to assert that the clients’ ability to obtain alternate quotations had been seriously prejudiced by these errors.
As a result the insurers were obliged, to amend the history, to issue renewal terms and most importantly, to withdraw the Declinature they had previously issued.
Not only did this allow the client to continue trading that year, but also to obtain a highly competitive quote the following year from another insurer, at a saving of over £14,000 in their premium.
The client has stated, that our work on their behalf meant the difference between them staying in business or ceasing to trade.
The company continues to go from strength to strength, providing a first class service to their clients as well as securing local and national business awards for their excellence.