Master Policy for Professional Indemnity Insurance – 2008/2009
The terms for renewal of the Master Policy for professional indemnity insurance for 2008/2009 have been negotiated.
The main features of renewal terms for the Master Policy are:
1. The limit of indemnity remains unchanged at £2,000,000 for each and every claim.
2. The self-insured amount (the excess) remains unchanged at £3,000 per partner with a 15 partner cap. For firms with more than 15 partners the standard self-insured amount is therefore capped at £45,000.
3. The self-insured amount is doubled in respect of:-
· Risk management categories including conflict of interest matters (on or after 1st November 1993), non-standard undertakings (on or after 1st November 1993), certain time-bar matters, inadequate professional service awards (on or after 1st April 2005) and where a settled claim arises in or from a conveyancing transaction carried out on or after 1st November 1996 where, in the opinion of the Council the prime cause is or is attributable to the fact that the practice charged the client a fee which, in all the circumstances, was unreasonably low.
· A firm is eligible for a discount from its Master Policy premium where the firm undertakes criminal work only or within the definition of a part-time practice.
4. Fee income was introduced as an additional rating factor for distribution of the global premium amongst individual firms. For 2008/2009 there will be no change to the percentage of the global premium allocated amongst practices in proportion to their anticipated fee income. This means that each practice unit will bear a sum equal to the proportion of 6% of the global premium which the gross anticipated fee income of the practice unit bears to the gross anticipated fee income of all practice units.
