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A view from the coal face

21 July 2011 / Steven O'Sullivan
Issue: 7475 / Categories: Features , Profession , Insurance / reinsurance
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Steven O’Sullivan surveys solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance

With recent hard markets, practitioners (especially those who are lucky and/or diligent enough to experience few or no claims) might wonder what insurers are doing to earn their increasing premiums, especially those who are lucky and/or diligent enough to experience few or no claims. Practitioners may therefore be interested to know about the experience of those of us who defend solicitors against claims, which naturally range from the nonsensical or outrageous to those where we are hard pushed to say anything in reply except maybe a challenge to the quantum of interest.

Lender claims

The big news over the recent years has been lender claims. Mortgage fraud and solicitors’ failings to lenders did not vanish between 1995 and 2005, but were masked by rising house prices meaning that repossession could take place without loss to the lender. Therefore, lender claims were a rarity.

With at best stagnant values since 2007, the lenders reaped the reward of poor lending decisions in the form

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Serious injury teambolstered by high-profile partner hire

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Firm strengthens employment team with partner hire

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

Lawyers’ liability practice strengthened with partner appointment in London

NEWS
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
Tech companies will be legally required to prevent material that encourages or assists serious self-harm appearing on their platforms, under Online Safety Act 2023 regulations due to come into force in the autumn
The Bar has a culture of ‘impunity’ and ‘collusive bystanding’ in which making a complaint is deemed career-ending due to a ‘cohort of untouchables’ at the top, Baroness Harriet Harman KC has found
Lawyers have broadly welcomed plans to electronically tag up to 22,000 more offenders, scrap most prison terms below a year and make prisoners ‘earn’ early release
David Lammy, Ellie Reeves and Baroness Levitt have taken up office at the Ministry of Justice, following the cabinet reshuffle
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