Is your Attorney Malpractice Insurer Writing in All Your States?
Not all attorney malpractice insurers and insurance agents might write in your states. This can be problematic for law firms that have multi-state practices. Certain law firms with multi-state practices address this issue by having different malpractice insurance policies for each state. Although this solution can work, it can be much more expensive than just having one insurance policy for your practice.
Fortunately L Squared is licensed in all 50 states with access to over 50 malpractice multi-state insurers.
Attorney malpractice insurers not writing in all your states may decline to write coverage for law firms with clients in the ‘wrong’ state. With certain insurers, even one client in the wrong state will be cause for declining coverage.
The reasons for this are:
- Attorney Malpractice insurer’s do not have panel counsel in the state
- An insurer used to write business in that state but has since withdrawn, because of poor results. This can be due to the legal climate perceived in that state or just poor underwriting results. Either way, the insurer wants nothing to do with handling claims in a particular state.
- Malpractice insurers might be concerned that the law firm may not understand the law in other states, and this could result in additional attorney malpractice exposures.
- A law firm practice percentage in the wrong state might be too large for the insurer.
- A malpractice insurer might be comfortable with a small percentage of the law firm’s work coming from another state but likely will ask additional questions as to the type of work performed and percentage of this work in another state.
Multi-state law firms best solution is to align themselves with a malpractice insurer and insurance agent licensed and willing to write coverage in all the law firm’s practice states. This may or may not be the least expensive premium option, but likely is the best insurance coverage solution.
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Lee Norcross, MBA, CPCU
California License # 0D87292
L Squared Insurance Agency, LLC ® DBA in California as L2 L Squared Insurance Agency, License # 0L93416
Managing Director, CEO
Lee@L2Ins.com
616-726-7080
