Professional Indemnity Insurance - Important Announcement

02/09/09

Dear colleagues

I wanted to alert you to an important a potentially beneficial development in relation to the PII market.

Many firms are in the midst of their renewal process for the regulatory minimum PII renewal.

Within the past five days two new market entrants have been confirmed as qualifying insurers for solicitors’ PII. Perhaps most importantly one will target the smaller end of the market.

I wanted to share this potentially important news with you and to ask for your assistance in making this as widely known across the profession as possible.

In today’s Professional Update we will be providing further details. We are also briefing the Gazette and we anticipate the Gazette will carry this both online and in the print versions. We are also briefing our Practice Advice Service so that they can provide this information to any solicitor/member enquiries.

The two organisations that have been confirmed as qualifying insurers are Hannover Reinsurance operating through their exclusive brokers Lockton, and XL operating through their brokers Aon for smaller firms.

We understand that XL will be writing cover for sole practitioners and above. Hannover will be providing cover to firms with at least four partners.

Since the price and availability of PII cover is a matter currently of market forces, an increase in the number of suppliers, particularly in less well serviced segments, must be potentially helpful.

If we can provide any further information or guidance to any local law society, I hope you won’t hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely

Robert Heslett, President of the Law Society of England and Wales