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When LASPO was approaching, I agreed to take a meeting with a salesman of an insurance broker who had a suggestion of how I could generate substantial additional income for our RTA department.

He advised that I could issue ATE policies myself and set the premium at whatever rate I wanted. I think the words he used were ‘just charge them whatever you think you can get away with.’ He boasted that one of his clients was planning on charging their clients a touch shy of £500 for an ATE policy on every case.

The general sentiment was that as RTA clients tend to come from the bottom rung of the social ladder, they were very unlikely to question the requirement for an ATE policy, or to question the price of it if a solicitor was telling them it was the right policy for them.

Apart from the fact that I would never consider defrauding my clients in that way, I was certain that the SRA would come down like a tonne of bricks on any solicitor caught up in such an arrangement and there would potentially be criminal sanctions.

I sent that salesman away with a flea in his ear telling him never to darken my doorstep again.

I have been keeping a close eye on all interventions and SDT judgements over the last few years waiting for what I thought was the inevitable fallout from this. As far as I am aware, there have been no regulatory sanctions from the SRA at all.

Three years later I couldn’t continue with RTA work because it simply wasn’t profitable sticking to the rules. And yet some of the firms I know have been claiming secret ATE commissions with impunity for the last few years have gone from strength to strength.

So much for trying to play the game with a straight bat…