Your PI insurer has non-renewed: what happens now
First: this is a process, not a verdict
A non-renewal is an underwriting decision about a portfolio, an appetite or a particular feature of your risk. It is rarely a judgement that your firm is uninsurable. Several insurers have scaled back their appetite for solicitors professional indemnity in recent years, and when an insurer pulls back it usually goes at the level of a whole segment — firm size, work mix, claims profile — rather than firm by firm. Plenty of firms that receive a non-renewal letter are placed comfortably elsewhere, provided the presentation is good and the timing is sane.
What does the damage is delay. The regulatory clock is short, the market you now need is smaller than the one you had, and underwriters price uncertainty. Every week you spend deciding is a week of leverage handed away.
The regulatory clock, precisely
The SRA Indemnity Insurance Rules build in a defined grace structure. It is worth reading the sequence carefully, because the two stages are very different in what they allow.
The policy period. Rule 2.2 requires you to obtain a policy of qualifying insurance before your current policy period expires, incepting with effect from the expiry of that period. That is the ordinary route, and it is the one to aim for.
The extended policy period. If you cannot do that, rule 2.3 gives you the extended policy period. It begins at the end of the policy period and ends on the earliest of: the date you obtain qualifying insurance incepting from the day immediately after expiry; the date 30 days after the end of the policy period; or the date your practice ceases. During this stage your firm continues to operate, and cover continues on the expiring terms — but you are on borrowed time and you must keep the SRA informed of the position.
The cessation period. If the extended policy period runs out with no cover, the cessation period begins. It ends on the earliest of: the date you obtain qualifying insurance incepting from the day after expiry; the date 90 days after the extended policy period commenced; or the date the practice ceases. In other words, the cessation period is the balance of a 90-day total — up to 60 further days.
The hard stop. Rule 2.4 requires a firm that has not obtained cover to cease practice promptly, and by no later than the expiry of the cessation period, unless it obtains qualifying insurance incepting from the expiry of the policy period and covering the activities carried out in the meantime.
What you may and may not do in the cessation period
This is the part firms most often get wrong, and it is the part with the most serious consequences. Rule 4.2 is explicit: a firm that has not obtained qualifying insurance before the extended policy period expires must ensure that the body, and each principal or employee, undertakes no activities in connection with private legal practice and accepts no instructions in respect of any such activities during the cessation period — save to the extent the activity is necessary in connection with discharging obligations within the scope of existing instructions.
Read plainly, that means no new clients and no new instructions from existing clients. You may do what is necessary to discharge what you have already been instructed to do. A firm that keeps taking work through the cessation period is not merely stretching a deadline; it is practising in breach of the rules, and it is doing so at exactly the moment its insurance position is weakest. Tell your COLP and COFA the day the non-renewal lands, and put a file-opening freeze protocol in the drawer ready to use.
What a broker does with the window
The work divides into four strands, and the good ones happen in parallel.
Remarketing to participating insurers. Your replacement policy has to come from a participating insurer: an authorised insurer that has signed the SRA’s participating insurer’s agreement, in force for underwriting new business at the date the contract is made. That defines the universe. A broker who knows the solicitors market knows which of those insurers are open to your profile this year, which will look at a firm with a live claim, and which will not entertain a submission at all. Approaches are co-ordinated so that the same underwriter is not hit twice by two different intermediaries, which reads as a firm shopping in a panic.
Risk presentation. The proposal form is the least interesting part of the submission. What moves an underwriter is the covering narrative: who supervises what, how files are reviewed, how the firm has changed since the events that produced its claims, what proportion of fee income comes from each work type, and what the firm has stopped doing. An underwriter reading a thin form fills the gaps with the worst case.
The claims narrative. Claims are not fatal; unexplained claims are. Each notification needs a short, honest account: what happened, what it cost or is reserved at, and specifically what changed afterwards — a new sign-off threshold, a supervision change, a work type dropped, a case management step added. Firms that can show the fix are underwritten as improving risks. Firms that supply a bare loss run are underwritten as unknowns.
Work mix, particularly conveyancing. Insurers look hard at the conveyancing share of fee income, at whether the firm acts for lenders, and at the volume and value of transactions relative to the number of supervising partners. If your ratio has drifted upward, say so and explain the controls around it. If it has come down, that is a headline, not a footnote.
Why weeks beat days
Three reasons. First, underwriting a solicitors firm takes time — referrals, questions, sometimes a call with the managing partner. Insurers who could have helped will decline a rushed submission simply because they cannot complete it before your date. Second, options create leverage. A firm with two or three sets of terms can negotiate excess levels, limits above the minimum, and payment arrangements; a firm with one set takes what it is given. Third, the extended policy period is a safety net, not a plan. Spending it is a signal you cannot un-send, and it starts the sequence that ends in a cessation period.
If your renewal is months away and you know your insurer is uneasy, that is the moment to start, not the week after the notice arrives.
The limits and terms you have to meet
Any replacement policy has to satisfy the SRA Minimum Terms and Conditions. The sum insured for any one claim, exclusive of defence costs, must be at least £3 million where the insured firm is a relevant recognised body or a relevant licensed body in respect of SRA-regulated activities under its licence, and at least £2 million in all other cases. There must be no monetary limit on defence costs cover. Those are floors, not recommendations — for many firms the sensible limit sits above them, and that is a conversation worth having while you are in the market anyway.
One further rule is worth knowing even in a calm year: if your participating insurer becomes subject to an insolvency event, rule 5.1 requires the firm to put qualifying insurance in place with another participating insurer as soon as reasonably practicable, and in any event within four weeks.
Run-off and closure, planned rather than stumbled into
If replacement cover genuinely is not available, closure is a decision to take deliberately and early, not to arrive at on day 89. The Minimum Terms and Conditions require run-off cover that extends the period of insurance by an additional six years, ending on the sixth anniversary of the date the cover would otherwise have ended — and that six years is measured to include the extended policy period and cessation period. Run-off is a cost the partners will carry, and it is far better budgeted for in advance than discovered in a hurry.
There is also a succession route: where there is a successor practice, the Minimum Terms allow the firm to elect, before cessation, whether the ceased practice is covered by run-off or insured as a prior practice under the successor’s policy. That election has real consequences and needs to be made with advice, not by default.
This page is general insurance information from an FCA-regulated insurance broker. It is not legal advice and it is not regulatory advice, and it does not replace the SRA’s own rules and guidance or advice from your compliance officer. Regulatory positions described here are as at August 2026 — check the current SRA Indemnity Insurance Rules and Minimum Terms and Conditions before acting.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a firm have if its PI insurer will not renew?
Under the SRA Indemnity Insurance Rules the policy period is followed by an extended policy period lasting up to 30 days, and if cover is still not in place a cessation period follows, ending 90 days after the extended policy period began. In practice that is up to 30 days of near-normal trading, then up to 60 days of severely restricted activity. Both windows end early if you obtain qualifying insurance incepting from the day after expiry.
Can we keep taking new work during the cessation period?
No. Rule 4.2 requires that the body and each principal or employee undertakes no activities in connection with private legal practice and accepts no instructions, except to the extent necessary to discharge obligations within the scope of existing instructions. That is a hard stop on new clients and new matters, not a slow-down.
What happens at the end of the cessation period?
Rule 2.4 requires the firm to cease practice promptly, and no later than the expiry of the cessation period, unless it obtains qualifying insurance that incepts from the day after the policy period expired and covers the activities carried out in the meantime. Closure then triggers run-off cover under the Minimum Terms and Conditions.
Does run-off cover last six years?
Yes. The Minimum Terms and Conditions require run-off cover to extend the period of insurance by an additional six years, ending on the sixth anniversary of the date the cover would otherwise have ended, and that period is measured to include the extended policy period and cessation period.
Can any insurer write our replacement cover?
It has to be a participating insurer — an authorised insurer that has entered into a participating insurer’s agreement with the SRA which is in force for underwriting new business when the contract is made. A broker checks that before presenting terms, because a quotation from a non-participating market does not solve your problem.
Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 724952). This page is general information, not advice on a specific policy.