More than half of the 1,900 sole practitioners who currently have professional indemnity insurance (PII) with Quinn Insurance have so far failed to apply to the broker attempting to find them alternative cover.

The news comes after Danish insurer Alpha Insurance last week said that it will enter the market, bringing up to £20m of fresh capacity.

With the 1 October deadline less than a month away, broker Prime Professions, which placed 1,900 sole practitioners with Quinn at the last renewal, said 1,000 of these have not yet submitted proposal forms, and urged them to do so promptly. They are however free to use other brokers.

Quinn confirmed last month that it will no longer offer solicitors’ PII insurance, meaning that its policyholders will have to seek alternative cover at this renewal. Prime has struck an exclusive agreement with Travelers, the second-largest PII insurer, to offer cover to some of these sole practitioners.

Prime director Martin Ellis said this week that, of the 1,900 sole practitioners formerly with Quinn, around 300 have already been granted PII cover by Travelers for the coming indemnity year. Prime had earlier indicated that Travelers will take on three-quarters of the sole practitioners, but market sources suggested that the insurer will end up taking on less than a quarter of them.

Nick Pointon, managing director at broker PYV Legal, which was one of Quinn’s brokers for small law firms, said that PYV is seeking or has sought cover for ‘hundreds’ of firms previously insured with insurance companies that have since pulled out of, or reduced their exposure to, the solicitors PII market.

He said that firms have generally been good at submitting proposals this year.

Danish insurer Alpha Insurance, meanwhile, will issue policies for firms of between one and 25 partners, in conjunction with Giles Insurance Brokers and St Giles Legal and Professional Risks. Alpha’s cover will be reinsured by Nasdaq-listed Greenlight Re, which has an ‘excellent’ financial stability rating from analyst AM Best.