Beware paying for your solicitors insurance

dekh

Following on from a post by Richard Webster http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=739845 I've looked into the Indemnity Insurance that some solicitors are charging their clients.

At one time it was considered to be alright for solicitors to charge this as a disbursement, (like your search fees), not any more. It should not be listed on your conveyancing quotes. If it is, just add it to their fees so you get a truer picture.

One thing that is worrying is that a few times I've seen phrases like - "Due to the ever increasing cost of indemnity insurance..."

This should be a HUGE warning. :eek: If a firms indemnity insurance is going up, they mustn't have the infrastructure, controls and procedures in place to provide a quality service. Or to put it bluntly, they must have to make regular claims on their indemnity insurance because of claims against them for poor quality work.

Richard_Webster

One thing that is worrying is that a few times I've seen phrases like - "Due to the ever increasing cost of indemnity insurance..."

This should be a HUGE warning. :eek: If a firms indemnity insurance is going up, they mustn't have the infrastructure, controls and procedures in place to provide a quality service. Or to put it bluntly, they must have to make regular claims on their indemnity insurance because of claims against them for poor quality work.

Exactly! Trouble is that there are enough people out there who are fooled by the headline offer of £189 + VAT or whatever and they don't read the small print. The firms in question rely on that!

I've looked into the Indemnity Insurance that some solicitors are charging their clients.

At one time it was considered to be alright for solicitors to charge this as a disbursement

I don't think it was ever right!

ajb69

While I agree with all the above, I thought I ought to point out that it's not *necessarily* claims that cause premiums to rise - although it usually is....

I'm not a solicitor, but I work in insurance, and the trade press has recently had a few articles which have effectively said that premiums are going to go up across-the-board for all solicitors.

If anyone's interested, what seems to be happening is that the master cover is being renewed, and several insurers are leaving the panel completely because of poor returns. The remainder are then putting their prices up - partly because they don't want to make an underwriting loss, and partly just because they can.

Of course, none of the above would stop me having large warning signs if a solicitor tried to charge extra because of the "rising cost of premiums" - that is indeed not a good sign....

d