Solicitor PI renewals sit at the intersection of two regimes. The Solicitors Regulation Authority's Minimum Terms and Conditions (SRA MTC) set the policy floor: every participating insurer must offer cover on terms no less favourable to the firm and to third parties. The Insurance Act 2015 then governs how the firm presents its risk. The MTC restricts what an insurer may do with a non-disclosure; the Act defines what a non-disclosure is and what remedies follow.
Apex Insurance Brokers arranges PI cover for solicitors, and the renewal conversation almost always returns to the same point: the duty of fair presentation under section 3 of the Act is not a form-filling exercise. It is a substantive obligation to disclose every material circumstance the firm knows, or ought to know after a reasonable search.
The Act's test is whether a circumstance would influence a prudent insurer's judgement in fixing the premium or taking the risk. For a law firm that captures more facts than partners often assume.
Section 4 requires the firm to make a reasonable search of information available to it. For a law firm that does not mean the managing partner alone. It means canvassing partners, fee earners and the risk function — anyone whose knowledge ought to inform the disclosure. A proposal signed by the senior partner without an internal sweep does not discharge the duty. Apex's renewal pack asks each partner, in writing, the same questions, and the responses are retained as evidence of the search.
The Insurance Act provides proportionate remedies under section 8 for a qualifying breach. Where the breach is deliberate or reckless, the insurer may avoid the policy and keep the premium. Where it is neither, the remedy depends on what the insurer would have done with full disclosure — avoidance, different terms, or a proportionate reduction of any claim payment.
The SRA MTC then layers its own protection. The continuous-cover provision can preserve cover for the firm against third-party claimants even where the firm has breached its duty, provided the firm has remained insured with the same participating insurer and the non-disclosure was not fraudulent. The insurer retains a right of recourse against the firm. This is a protection for the client, not a safe harbour for the firm.
The following is a hypothetical illustration. It is not a description of any real firm or matter.
A mid-sized firm's conveyancing partner is informed in May, before the 1 October renewal, that a client is unhappy about a missed local authority search on a 2025 transaction. No claim has been intimated. The partner forms the view that the firm is probably not liable and does not raise it at the August partners' meeting.
At renewal the firm completes its proposal without reference to the complaint. A formal claim is later issued. The insurer concludes the matter was a known circumstance from May and should have been disclosed under section 3. Whether the breach is reckless or inadvertent turns on the contemporaneous evidence — meeting minutes, file notes, internal email. If the firm has been with the same MTC insurer continuously, the continuous-cover provision should preserve the client's position; the insurer's right of recourse against the firm remains.
Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Firm reference number 724952. This entry is general information, not advice on any particular policy.