DO YOU NEED EXCESS INSURANCE? All insured lawyers in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador have mandatory insurance coverage of $1 million per claim with an aggregate limit of $2 million. You might consider these limits of insurance when you decide whether or not this is enough coverage for your practice. You can purchase excess...

Loss Prevention Tip #12 The Lawyers’ Insurance Programme is seeing an increase in spear phishing email frauds targeting lawyers and law firms. The spear phishing messages we are seeing are very sophisticated. The messages are intended to trick the recipient into making a payment or transferring funds to someone outside the firm. A sample of...

Report all Insurance Claims before June 30, 2017 The Law Society Member’s insurance policy is a “claims-made” policy. Accordingly, the focus is on when the claim is made and reported, not on the year in which services are provided and the alleged error is said to have occurred. For example, if a claim is made...

CLIA Cyber Liability Program Lawyers and law firms are potential targets for hackers, ransomware and cyber criminals. However, the mandatory Professional Liability Insurance Policy has always excluded claims arising out of cybercrime. Now, CLIA has arranged a new program which will provide cyber coverage protection for lawyers and their clients. This new policy will take...

LOSS PREVENTION TIP Are you suing the right party? When you file a lawsuit, beating the statute of limitations is not your only concern. You must also ensure that you’ve named the proper defendant. Malpractice claims arising out of failure to name the proper party are common. Here are two illustrations: Lawyer asks associate to...

LOSS PREVENTION TIP When are you Retained on a New Matter for a Multiple-File Client? A lawyer represented a busy salesman on several commercial matters including some litigation files. During meetings to discuss his commercial files, the client mentioned he’d been involved in a car accident and complained about the trouble he was having getting...

Business Interruption Plan? None of us like to think about disasters, and perhaps we even have an “it won’t happen to me” attitude. Regardless of the size of your firm, you might want to consider implementing a plan which will assist you, or anyone in your office, if there were an unexpected business interruption affecting...

TIPS TO HELP YOU AVOID AN INSURANCE CLAIM From a claims prevention point of view you get more for your risk management efforts by focusing on improving client communications and by getting things done on time. Below are a few tips for avoiding an insurance claim. Begin with a written retainer agreement. The retainer document...

Fraud in real estate transactions is a growing area of concern. The following examples show how two of the more common types of fraud- identity fraud and value fraud- may occur. We have also provided you with some red flag indicators and some loss prevention tips to assist you in avoiding a potential insurance claim....