Solicitors Indemnity Insurance
If you run a company offering legal advice as a solicitors' office, then you need to ensure you have adequate cover in the form of professional indemnity insurance against potential professional mistakes.
It is a compulsory requirement made by the Law Society to have a minimum cover of £2 million, and if you are operating as a limited liability partnership, the minimum is £3 million.
Whatever the nature of your business from conveyancing, personal injury, employment law, litigation or commercial solicitor you are required to have minimum levels of professional indemnity insurance - here's an overview of the types required.
What Types of Insurance Should I Have?
As with all professions, a solicitor has direct contact with people and companies providing legal advice. Even if you are operating alone and don't have any staff to control, as you are offering a professional opinion, you have a duty of care over the advice provided.
Sometimes that advice may be incorrect for one reason or another. Furthermore, your client may incur a financial loss and may seek redress in the form of compensation from you. That's where reliable insurance policies help mitigate the complete cost of any award made against you by the courts, with the legal expenses to cover the costs of any claim.
Your company, partnership, or sole trading business should seek to investigate the two primary types of insurance available.
- Public Liability Insurance
- Professional Indemnity Insurance
- Employers Liability Insurance
- General Office Insurance
If members or the public, tradespeople, or other third-parties visit your premises or you visit other locations, then public Liability Insurance guards against accidents and injury claims.
As required by the Law Society, you must have adequate professional indemnity insurance to cover your business against professional misjudgment and mistakes.
See below for additional explanations on these essential policies.
Solicitors Public Liability Insurance
This type of business insurances covers you against accidents at your and your customer premises. It covers a third-party at your offices and staff incidents at other places. It does not cover your staff at your offices.
Although not a legal requirement, most businesses have cover of £2million as the cost of claims is increasing due to the awareness of no win no fee TV adverts.
If you have an office where customers visits or you travel to their premises, then you should seriously consider taking out a policy.
The insurance covers all costs associated with legal fees, compensation, and court costs connected with any claim made against you. You can get a free public liability quote online in minutes to see how much it's going to cost you each year.
Solicitors Professional Indemnity Insurance
Professional indemnity insurance covers your practice against professional business errors made through the provision of legal advice. Where your client incurs a monetary loss from the information provided, and it later transpires that this was wrong or better advice was available at the time, then they could claim you.
All solicitor-based businesses have to have the minimum cover of £2million annually, but this will depend on the size of your business. Premiums tend to increase when the October deadline approaches and some insurers withdraw their products from the market entirely, so it's best to renew in plenty of time.
Your policy covers your business against most professionally-based claims and may also include libel, slander, and breach of copyright. This insurance is compulsory for all solicitors.
You can get a free professional indemnity quote online in minutes to see how much it's going to cost you each year.
Employers' Liability Insurance
It's a legal requirement in the UK to have employers' liability insurance if you employ one or more members of staff. If you do not take out this cover, then your business risks fines of £2,500 per day until you do.
This insurance covers your business against accidents, illness, and injury to staff members while they go about their work for your company. Ensure you notify any changes to your payroll, whether PAYE or contract workers to keep your policy valid.
Office Insurance for Solicitors
With the value of IT equipment escalating and burglaries increasing, it's prudent to take out some form of office insurance.
Although theft may appear to be the highest priority, these types of policies also cover for eventualities such as accidents, flood damage, fire, and other external events.
With office insurance, some insurers also included professional indemnity and professional indemnity cover as standard. You can get a free office insurance quote online in minutes to see how much it's going to cost you each year.