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The winds have, and are continuing to change in the solicitor's professional indemnity market, and with this in mind having the right broker fighting for your practice's interests will be crucial.

Your broker represents your practice, and as your chosen intermediary they will negotiate with insurers on your behalf. In recent years the PII marketplace has been competitive, to the benefit of many practices, however, following our analysis of the October renewal season a proportion of the profession is now experiencing the contrary.

Despite the average increases in PI premium referred to above, at Lockton, we were delighted to increase the share of law firms we act for by just over 13%. We are proud to now represent just over 1,200 law firms across England and Wales – we believe this is testament to our expert capabilities in a challenging marketplace to be able to deliver the best possible outcome for our valued clients.

Lockton: your trusted insurance and risk advisor 

Our role as an Insurance Intermediary is to help you manage and de-risk your business. A further crucial role is assisting you with the selection of insurers and sourcing the appropriate coverage whilst obtaining a competitive and sustainable premium.  Practices across England and Wales choose Lockton as their partner because:

  • We have the broadest choice of insurers of any broker. This includes exclusive or enhanced access to 6 insurers, with direct access to a further 11 other participating insurers. We are constantly abreast in the market ensuring that we present your submission to the most appropriate Insurers.
  • The selection of insurer goes beyond just pricing.
    • It is important to consider each insurers' claims handling function. Our recommendation of insurer will be based upon the individual characteristics of your new practice.
    • We give impartial advice. We will actively work with you to create the best outcome for your business. Our team can help with any scenarios your firm may encounter beyond the renewal process.
    • Every practice will have different requirements and we look at placing your practice with an insurer which suits you best. This can include providing options on differing run-off rates and applying bespoke excesses dependant on work profile.
    • As a Lockton client we ensure the renewal process is kept simple. We pre-populate all previous years' information to your renewal forms allowing you to focus on fee earning and growing your practice.
    • We look at the financial stability and sustainability of each insurer, also known as Market Security. All Insurers we recommend have to meet or exceed our strict minimum financial security requirement set by our Market Security Committee (MSC).

This review goes beyond simply achieving certain agency ratings, our MSC review the financials, the classes of business that they intend to write, claims handling, along with a number of other factors.

  • A suite of insurance products. We have specialists in all areas of insurance, tailored to the legal profession. This allows options and products to protect your business.

At Lockton we pride ourselves on our approach and exceptional levels of service. Our service includes both a personable approach and online support.

Lockton Support:

  • Year round support - Our team are dedicated to the Legal Profession of England and Wales all year round, your dedicated account executive is supported by a team of professionals to service any requirements that you may have throughout the year.
  • Claims support - Our In house claims team are a critical contributor to our overall service proposition. In the event that you are unfortunate to experience a claim or even just discover that something might have gone amiss in your professional work, you can be rest assured that our expert team will guide you through the claims process.

An important component of our in-house claims team is our Claims Advocates. We employ a highly skilled team of claims advocates to work with our clients to ensure the proactive and efficient handling and settlement of claims. In the event that you do need them, the claims team will always be on hand to assist with all issues arising in connection with any claim (or issue that could give rise to one) that you may experience. 

  • Seminars – with the introduction of Webinars these are not as frequent as they once were but all clients are invited to these events which cover issues that may well impact upon their practice.

Online Support:

As a client you will have access to an Online Portal that provides you with:

  • A secure place to store all of your policy documents, giving you 24/7 access to all renewal documentation.
  • Practical guidance and templates on risk management and regulatory and compliance matters within our extensive library.
  • We provide monthly insights on hot-topics; these insights keep you informed of forthcoming changes, whilst allowing your practice to foresee risks before they occur
  • CPD modules available to all of your fee earners and this is completely free-of-charge
  • Online Pre populated proposal form, making the renewal process far easier for you at subsequent renewals

It is important to make the right choice when choosing the insurance partner for your firm. At Lockton we strongly believe that due to the number of clients we act for, and the sustained growth in numbers each year, that we are the appropriate choice to circumnavigate your practice through a challenging PI Insurance environment.