Regardless of whether you are moving your Law Office across town or out of state you should notify all of your property & casualty insurance carriers, this includes your Lawyers Professional Liability Insurance/Malpractice Carrier as soon as possible. Do not wait until renewal to notify your insurance carrier and/or agent.
As to your Lawyers Professional Liability Insurance, many insurance carriers will either cancel your coverage midterm or non-renew your Lawyer Professional Liability Insurance at renewal. Even if your agent and your insurance carrier are licensed in the new state this will normally occur. Reason for this is that policy forms filed for even the same carrier may differ from state to state, so the policy forms are not always the same.
Your new insurance carrier, in your new state may not want to cover your past acts in your old state. One of the main reasons for this is that the policy forms may be different and more importantly your new carrier may not be writing Lawyers Professional Liability/Malpractice Insurance in your old state and therefore may not have impaneled counsel for work you did in your old state should a claim arise.
If you cannot obtain past acts coverage you will need to exercise your rights under your old Lawyers Liability Policy to purchase an Extended Reporting Period Endorsement (ERP) or Tail. Your rights to purchase an ERP are time sensitive. Generally you only have 30 or 60 days from coverage termination or material change in risk (IE moving locations) to exercise that right. So if you cannot obtain prior acts/retroactive coverage, purchase the ERP as soon as possible.
If your new policy is without past acts coverage it is less expensive than a “fully rated” policy. But the base rates may be higher or lower depending on your new state and carrier rates.
L Squared is uniquely positioned to write Lawyers Malpractice Insurance acrossed the USA. If you find yourself in the position of needing to find a new agent, give us a call!