Lyrics from the Bob Dylan song:
“Come gather ‘round people, wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown, and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone, if your time to you is worth savin’, and you better start swimmin’, or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changin’”
Yes, 2021 is ushering in a number of changes for all of us. If your practice is changing, here is a list of high risk areas of practice that may impact your malpractice insurance coverage.
- Cannabis Representation – Nationwide the insurance and financial industries have not been able to reconcile an industry that is illegal at the federal level and legal in many states. As a result, pricing is high, if available, even for lawyers who are just giving advice to these businesses.
- Plaintiff Class Action and Mass Tort work and to a lesser extent defense work in this area. Almost universally class action and mass tort are viewed as a high risk. Many underwriters will not write a firm doing this work.
- Medical Malpractice Plaintiff Work – Traditionally, a high claim area of practice.
- Collection Work
- High Volume Estate Work – Claim statistics are showing an increase in severity in this area of the law.
- High Value Family Law – Claim statistics are showing an increase in severity.
- IP Work – Viewed as extremely high risk. Many underwriters will not provide terms for a firm doing this type of work.
- Securities Work – High severity.
We are not suggesting that you not take on these representations for your clients, however, you should be aware that adding these areas of practice to the work performed at your firm will likely have an impact on your malpractice insurance costs.
If there are any questions, please contact your Kaestner & Berry representation for assistance.
At Kaestner & Berry we are independent agents who specialize in helping law firms meet the challenges of a changing world.