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Proposal form guides
A plain-English guide to the questions on Apex’s solicitors’ professional indemnity proposal form: what each section is for, why underwriters ask, and where firms most often trip up.
Part of: Professional indemnity insurance at Apex
In short
The solicitors’ PI proposal form is the firm’s presentation of risk to a qualifying insurer, and the Insurance Act 2015 duty of fair presentation applies to it. Underwriters use it to establish exactly which entities and people are insured, what work generates the fees, how client money and undertakings are controlled, and what has gone wrong before. The answers that cause most trouble concern successor practices, conveyancing and personal injury detail, fraud controls and unreported circumstances. Answer from records rather than memory, and disclose anything material even if no question asks for it.
For a law firm, professional indemnity is a non-consumer insurance contract, so the proposal form is the main vehicle for the duty of fair presentation under the Insurance Act 2015. Answering every question is not automatically enough. The duty covers every material circumstance the firm knows or ought to know, presented clearly, and “ought to know” reaches beyond the person filling in the form. If something material does not fit a box, it goes in the “other material information” field near the end.
Solicitors have a particular reason to take care. The SRA Minimum Terms and Conditions stop a qualifying insurer from refusing a client’s claim because of non-disclosure, but they generally leave the insurer free to seek reimbursement from the firm. A careless answer rarely leaves the client uncovered; it can leave the partners paying. Our page on why the proposal form matters covers the general principle, and the solicitors’ PI insurance guide the wider picture.
What to have to hand: SRA numbers and Companies House details for every entity; a current list of solicitors and other fee earners; five years of fees by territory; last year’s split by work type and client type; debtor and work-in-progress figures; claims and circumstances history from current and previous insurers; and recent SRA, Legal Ombudsman and accountant’s report correspondence.
Expect questions on the practice name, SRA number, legal structure, other offices and entities, prior practices and mergers, and whether the firm is, or plans to become, an Alternative Business Structure.
What the underwriter is establishing: exactly who is insured. Under the minimum terms, a firm that takes over another practice can become its successor and inherit responsibility for claims about that practice’s work. That is why the form asks about predecessors over the last ten years, including former trading names, and whether any of them reported claims or circumstances. Expect to be asked for prior insurers’ claims information.
The question about merging with a firm that bought run-off before joining you is the other side of the same coin: if that run-off was properly in place, you are not its successor, and the underwriter wants the proof. Our page on the successor practice definition explains the mechanics.
Common mistakes: forgetting a dormant entity or old trading name, and listing a branch without explaining how it is supervised when no principal works there.
This section asks for every principal, partner, member, director, assistant and consultant (including Registered Foreign or European Lawyer status), any non-solicitor or corporate principals, outside roles, headcount by category, whether principals work full time for the firm, and outsourcing.
The ratio of principals to qualified staff and unqualified fee earners is a proxy for supervision. A firm where much of the work is done by trainees and paralegals under a few partners presents differently from one where partners run their own files. Outside roles matter because they are a source of conflicts.
Common mistakes: leaving out consultants because they are self-employed, and forgetting outsourced work such as agency advocacy, costs drafting or typing. If anything is outsourced, the form asks whether the arrangement complies with the SRA Code of Conduct; be ready to say how.
The core of the form: the percentage of last year’s gross fees by area of work, totalling exactly 100%, the split by client type, and questions on client concentration, entertainment and sports clients, and class actions or group litigation.
The split matters more than the total. Conveyancing, wills and probate, personal injury and commercial property carry a different claims profile from employment or family work, and the mix is one of the main drivers of terms.
The 20% question is about dependency. If one client or referral source produced a fifth or more of fees in any of the last three years, the underwriter wants to know who and what work. One relationship going wrong can produce many claims at once.
The form asks for last year only. If the mix has shifted over three years, for example into or out of conveyancing, say so under other material information.
Expect gross fees by territory for five completed years plus next year’s estimate, any US-domiciled interests, fees outstanding and the share over 90 days, unbilled work in progress, overdraft and borrowing, guarantees for partners’ capital loans, drawings against profit, and any outside financial control.
These look like credit questions. Financial strain is one of the clearest warning signs for a solicitors’ underwriter: firms under pressure are more likely to cut corners on supervision and, at worst, to see client money misused.
The US question is narrow: acting for a US client from a UK office does not count; a US office or registered address does. Next year’s estimate is a representation of expectation and must be made in good faith.
This section only applies if you do conveyancing or claimant personal injury work. If you do, it is detailed.
Conveyancing. Expect highest and average residential and commercial property values, repeat work on one development or for one buyer of several properties, lender terms more onerous than the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders’ Handbook (formerly the CML Handbook), escalating ground rents, Help to Buy volumes and land bank schemes. Each reflects a pattern behind past claims: bulk development and investor schemes, ground rent reporting failures, and property fraud. Our conveyancing fraud case study shows how these play out.
Personal injury. Expect the split between clinical negligence, occupational disease and other work, open cases, average and highest settlements, track allocation, cases expected to settle above £250,000, file audits by underwriters or funders, and referral arrangements with unions, claims management companies or networks. A missed limitation date on a high-value case is the classic personal injury claim; the severity questions size that tail.
Common mistake: estimating values. Run the report from the case management system and keep it on file.
A long run of questions: accreditations such as Lexcel or CQS; recruitment and appraisal; file audits; conflict checks; who can give undertakings and authorise client account payments; key-dates diaries; engagement letters; anti-money laundering training; client account reconciliation; any qualified accountant’s report; and who your risk manager, COLP and COFA are.
Many claims against solicitors trace back to a few failures: missed deadlines, undertakings given casually, conflicts not spotted and client money sent to the wrong place. The form is asking whether there is a control for each. A firm that can say how many files are reviewed, how often and by whom presents better than one that simply ticks “yes”.
Answer what actually happens, not what the office manual says. If the diary system is not checked when someone is on holiday, a “yes” is a misrepresentation.
The first part asks about payment fraud controls: never disclosing security details, exchanging bank details at the outset, never accepting changes by email or phone without verification, separating who sets up and who authorises client account payments, and the limit on faster payments made without independent checks. Email interception and identity fraud on client account payments are a major, recurring loss for law firms, and that limit is a number underwriters will look at.
The second part covers ten years of regulatory and personal history: practising certificate refusals or conditions, tribunal sanctions, Ombudsman awards, SRA investigations and settlements, dishonesty offences, insolvency, monitoring visits and self-reports.
Ask every individual in writing. Any “yes” needs details and copies of the correspondence. A disclosed matter with a clear explanation is far easier to place than one found later.
Expect current policy details, a year-by-year record of claims and circumstances, dishonesty claims, matters from principals’ previous firms, refusals by participating insurers, unpaid premiums or excesses, reserved or declined notifications, and significant changes.
The question that causes most trouble asks whether, after full enquiry, anyone is aware of a circumstance not reported or not accepted as notified. It is not limited to formal complaints: the client unhappy with an outcome, the missed date found in a file review, the lender querying a completion. Make a documented enquiry of every principal and fee earner before signing. A circumstance usually belongs with your current insurer as a notification before expiry, and then on the form as well.
Unpaid excesses and premium arrears weigh heavily with solicitors’ insurers, because the minimum terms leave them few ways out of a policy once it is written.
The sanctions questions ask about exposure to sanctioned parties in Russia or Belarus, ownership from those countries, and ongoing exposure to Russia, Belarus or Ukraine. Answer for clients as well as owners: insurers cannot pay where sanctions prohibit it.
Then the catch-all: any other material information. Trends in the practice mix, recent risk management changes and anything else material belong here. Use it.
Finally the limit, excess and start date. Under the SRA indemnity insurance rules the minimum terms require at least £2 million for any one claim, or £3 million where the firm is an LLP or company. That is a floor, not a target; firms with high-value property or commercial work often buy top-up cover above it. A higher excess usually lowers the premium, but the firm pays it on every claim. Many firms still renew on 1 October, but inception can be moved.
The declaration must be given by a principal, partner, member or director. Read it: it usually commits the firm to telling insurers about material changes before cover starts. The weeks between submitting the form and renewal are exactly when awkward letters arrive; pass them on.
Yes. The minimum terms protect the client: a qualifying insurer cannot refuse a client's claim because of non-disclosure or misrepresentation. But they generally allow the insurer to seek reimbursement from the firm, so the cost of a careless answer can fall on the partners. The duty of fair presentation under the Insurance Act 2015 still applies.
Because a firm that takes over another practice can become its successor under the minimum terms and inherit responsibility for claims about its past work. The underwriter needs to know which practices the firm may be answerable for and how they have claimed.
Anything that might reasonably give rise to a claim, not just formal complaints: a dissatisfied client, a missed date found on file review, a lender query, a regulator enquiry. If one exists, notify your current insurer before the policy expires and then disclose it on the form. Our page on circumstance notification explains how.
The minimum terms set a floor of £2 million for any one claim, or £3 million for an LLP or company. The right figure depends on the value of the matters you handle and what clients and lenders expect; many firms buy top-up cover above it.
Yes. The conveyancing questions apply to any residential or commercial conveyancing, however small a share of fees. A small department handling high-value or bulk work can carry more risk than its fee share suggests.
No. It walks through the questions on Apex's own online proposal form for solicitors and explains why underwriters ask them. Insurers' own forms differ in wording, order and definitions, and nothing here reproduces any insurer's form.
Start your proposal online and save it as you go, or upload a completed proposal from your current broker on the first page. Or call 0117 325 0027.
Start your proposal Request a callbackApex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered in England and Wales, company number 07014570. This page is general information, not advice on your individual circumstances. It explains the kinds of question asked and does not reproduce any insurer's form or guarantee that cover will be available or on what terms.
