The legal services sector contributes £60bn a year to the UK economy and underpins over half a million jobs across England and Wales. Solicitors make an enormous contribution to our economy, but in order to protect their clients and themselves, they must have sufficient insurance.
More than 40% of firms still have the old common renewal date of 1 October, and they should be exploring the right cover for them. The Law Society carried out research on professional indemnity insurance (PII) to find out about the experience law firms and sole practitioners had of the insurance market.
A key issue we identified is that smaller firms are paying more, as a proportion of turnover, for their PII than larger firms. They are also more likely to switch insurers and end up paying higher premiums, suggesting they are doing so as a matter of necessity, not choice.
Another issue is that the process of purchasing PII has become more difficult,
