Huntersure: Lawyers Prior Acts Coverage

Huntersure offers an exclusive professional liability insurance program on a nationwide basis designed to provide Stand-Alone Prior Acts Coverage for all lawyers, groups of lawyers, and dissolving law firms.  Our underwriters are practicing attorneys with strong claims-handling backgrounds who understand the risks and exposures facing prospective clients. Therefore, our underwriters offer unique insight and experience addressing the issues most important to lawyers and law firm entities. Having a claims background also provides our underwriters with the ability to understand a client’s claims history, and provide a proactive response when assisting insureds through the claims process.

Huntersure’s Stand-Alone Prior Acts Program is a new product developed by our lawyer underwriters for lawyers. Our Program is written on behalf of London-based insurers with an A.M. Best rating of “A XV”.

Program features

  • Stand-Alone Policy Wording Offered
  • Unique Policy Wording Tailored for the Estates of Deceased Lawyers Written on a First Dollar Basis
  • Contingent Coverage Offered for Individuals or Groups Leaving a Firm
  • Direct Coverage Offered for Firms Dissolving or an Estate
    • Direct Coverage on our Stand-Alone Policy or as an Endorsement to the Existing Coverage
    • Up to Six Years Reporting Period Offered
    • Unique Policy Application; Separate Application for Estates
    • Policy Limits of $5M/$10M Aggregate Limits Available
    • $5,000 Minimum Deductible; No Deductible for Estates
    • Claims-Made Policy Written on Defense Policy Form
    • Primary or Excess Layers will be Considered
    • All Practice Areas Considered
    • All Jurisdictions Considered

Submission Requirements

  • Fully Executed Application with No Known Circumstances Warranty
  • For Estates, Application to be Signed by Executor
  • Five-Year Loss Runs Preferred
  • Prior Firm’s Most Recent Application and Policy Form

FAQs

Q: Will you provide Prior Acts Coverage if the insured has never had coverage in the past or there has been a lapse in coverage in the last five years?
A: No. Prior Acts coverage assumes that the Named Insured has had coverage and that all known matters have been reported, or will be reported to a previous carrier.

Q: Will the Prior Acts Coverage apply to cover a Named Insured’s obligation or demand to pay part of or the full deductible or self-insured retention on a prior policy?
A: No. An individual insured’s obligation to personally pay a portion or even all of the deductible or self-insured retention on a policy will be governed by their relationship to their former firm, the former firm’s partnership agreement and partnership law. In most cases we have seen, individual lawyers are not personally, individually, responsible for such payments. We cannot allow the existence of the Prior Acts Coverage to allow a firm or the Named Insured’s former partners to avoid their obligation to pay their deductible or self-insured retention.

Q: Where a firm dissolves or where you have an estate of a lawyer, can the pricing of the A: Prior Acts Coverage include taking out the deductible or self-insured retention?
Yes. In the case of estates, we assume that the executor will need to purchase first dollar coverage so that the estate can be closed out in a timely fashion. Where a firm is dissolving, we can discuss pricing for reduced or eliminated deductibles or retentions.

Additional Information

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Look to Huntersure to Place Your Lawyers Professional Liability Coverage.

We make doing business with us easy with our breadth and depth of knowledge of E&O insurance, our proprietary underwriting system that allows for responsive quoting, binding and policy issuance and tailored products to meet the needs of your insureds. To find out more about our products for Lawyers Errors and Omissions, contact us at 516-907-2631.