Background
The requirement by the consumer-focused Solicitors Regulation
Authority (SRA) for law firms to purchase professional indemnity
insurance (PII) to comply with minimum terms, has remained a
constant in these unprecedented times. The recent 1 October PII
renewal process has been challenging. It has highlighted the issue
of negotiating PII renewal terms in an insurance market undergoing
significant change, whilst also adjusting to recessionary
conditions imposed by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Since the PII market for solicitors moved from a mutual
insurance arrangement (SIF) to the open market in 2000, conditions
have largely been 'soft', meaning that the supply of
insurance outstripped demand and prices remained increasingly
competitive. In an attempt to keep prices down when they threatened
to go up, the SRA introduced unrated Insurers as an option for
firms. However, changes to the PII market began to emerge in 2018,
when various Insurer
