Proposed cuts to legal aid and restrictions on conditional fee agreements (CFAs) will create a “perfect storm”, denying proper access to justice for some of the most seriously injured people, warns the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL). Having issued in-depth responses to the Government’s consultation on legal aid and civil litigation funding, APIL is [...]
The Law Society is inviting members and stakeholders to consider a replacement to its Assigned Risk Pool (ARP), which is intended for solicitors unable to secure Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII). One alternative put forward by the Society would mean legal practices unable to find PII cover in the open market are given a minimum of [...]
Six people have been charged in connection with an investigation into “crash for cash” insurance fraud in Lancashire, the BBC has reported. Five men and one woman (all from Blackburn) are understood to have been charged with fraud by false representation, following enquiries that date back to early 2010, and are due to appear before [...]
Legal expenses insurer, Arag, has revealed that it is considering launching divorce insurance in the UK, following a government announcement that almost all Legal Aid for divorce disputes settled by the courts is to end. Justice Minister, Jonathan Djanogly, has already highlighted the need for insurance to cover divorce-related legal costs, and speaking on BBC [...]
Seven insurance companies and two IT software and service providers have provisionally agreed to limit the data they exchange, following competition law concerns raised by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). Ageas, Aviva, AXA Insurance UK, Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society, RBS Insurance, RSA and Zurich, plus IT firms Experian and SSP, have all offered formal [...]
New powers to tackle uninsured driving will come into force within months, Road Safety Minister, Mike Penning, has announced. The Department for Transport has today made the Commencement Order to make it an offence to be the registered keeper of a vehicle which does not have insurance, with the new rules due to come into [...]
The Law Commission has reported on responses to its paper on “Damages for Late Payment and the Insurer’s Duty of Good Faith”. The paper asks whether a policyholder should be entitled to damages where the insurer has refused to pay a valid insurance claim, or has paid only after considerable delay. Under ordinary contract law [...]
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has responded to Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke’s introduction of a green paper on civil litigation costs by saying that proposals to restrict “no win, no fee” will “hit the weakest the hardest”. The key proposal is to abolish recoverability of success fees and associated costs in “no win, [...]
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has welcomed the Lord Chancellor’s agreement to a review of the discount rate. The discount rate is used to calculate the amount deducted from an injured person’s compensation to account for any income they may receive from investing their damages. The rate was set at 2.5% by the [...]
Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, has indicated that lawyers in England and Wales may be prevented from raising the bar on their fees when successful in no-win-no-fee personal injury cases. Lawyers working on a no-win-no-fee basis are currently able to double their fees in cases they win. However, speaking on BBC Radio 4′s Law in Action [...]
TMF, the international VAT and IPT service provider, is warning UK and Irish insurance companies that they could soon face increased costs on outsourcing, owing to a new EU directive. Current rules on VAT for the insurance industry, drawn up in 1977, broadly exempt insurance and intermediary/broking services from VAT. TMF explains: “However, as the [...]
The Competition Commission (CC) has confirmed that it will introduce a ban on the sale of payment protection insurance (PPI) alongside an associated credit product, such as a personal loan. The restriction, which excludes retail PPI, should have been introduced last year but an appeal by Barclays resulted in a postponement. The Commission has since [...]
Consumers who have brought legitimate complaints about Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) sold by banks could face delays of many months in receiving compensation. The British Bankers’ Association (BBA) has recently requested a judicial review of some decisions made by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Financial Ombudsman Service, in relation to PPI. The move [...]
The CEA (European insurance and reinsurance federation) has welcomed a decision by the European Commission not to propose an EU-wide compulsory liability scheme to cover environmental damage, or imminent threat of environmental damage, under the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD). According to CEA director general, Michaela Koller, the EC has recognised that “insurers are steadily developing [...]
The CEA (the European insurance and reinsurance federation) is calling for European Commission (EC) tax proposals to differentiate between insurers and the banks. The body believes that the proposed Financial Activities Tax (FAT), which would target the profits and remunerations of the financial sector, is not justified in the case of insurers. In addition, the [...]
The Law Society has launched a new scheme to help law firms struggling to secure professional indemnity insurance (PII) renewal terms. SafetyNet will provide assistance to “distressed” firms, or firms seeking to avoid entering the Society’s assigned risks pool (ARP) or attempting to exit the ARP. The scheme, which is managed by Lloyd’s broker PYV [...]
Guy Carpenter & Company has released a report on the recent developments and trends in the Continental European legal environment that impact on the casualty insurance industry. The study has been developed in conjunction with law firm, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, and its network of insurance law practitioners in jurisdictions across Continental Europe. It highlights [...]
