A new insurer has entered the solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance (PII) market focusing on firms of up to five partners, the Law Society disclosed last week.

Vision Underwriting Limited, whose ultimate parent company is US insurance giant Liberty Mutual Group, will be trading both on a direct basis, and online under the name Legal and Professional Insurance. The insurer has also signed a deal with the Society to take over Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF) run-off claims.

Vision said its ‘method of filtering out [only] the very best firms’ and concerns over the cost of the assigned risks pool (ARP) will constrain the number of firms it insures.

Nevertheless, its entrance will serve as a much-needed boost to the solicitors’ PII market. More than 3,000 law firms and sole practitioners may need to find alternative cover during the coming renewals season because of the expected departure of Irish insurer Quinn from the market, and an announcement by Hiscox that it is pulling out of solicitors’ PII altogether.

George Raubenheimer, managing director of Legal and Professional Insurance, said: ‘We are well aware that this area of the market [one- to five-partner firms] has not been profitable for underwriters for a number of years, but we also know there are a number of very good practices and it is these that we are trying to help.’

Law Society chief executive Des Hudson said: ‘The Society has secured an excellent result for the profession, which secures the viability of the handling of SIF run-off claims at a reasonable cost, when we are working hard to keep to a minimum the overheads on solicitors.’ He added that he was ‘delighted’ to welcome another PII insurer.