By Legal Futures Associate ARAG
The history of insuring personal injury and clinical negligence cases has been such a rollercoaster ride through continued legislative tinkering and satellite litigation, that these tend to be the first and, sometimes, only things that come to mind when talking about after-the-event (ATE) insurance.
However, the market for ATE insurance to cover the costs in non-injury cases is growing rapidly and is especially useful in pursuing contract and insolvency claims.
There’s a healthy and competitive market for ATE policies to cover such claims but, unlike injury and medical negligence specialists who typically insure all of their cases in a scheme, under delegated authority, finding the policy that best meets the needs of a specific contract claim, for example, can be a major challenge.
This is why ARAG chose to offer our market-leading Recourse Options policy for commercial contract disputes through the Accelerate platform, developed by the pioneering ATE broker TheJudge.
The platform provides quotations for ATE policies to cover up to £250,000 in adverse costs and own disbursements.
As the name suggests, Accelerate simplifies and speeds up the process of finding the best policy for a client’s claim, providing a non-binding indication of the cover available along with policy wordings, within 24 hours.
Behind the platform sits a panel of the UK’s leading ATE insurers, ensuring that TheJudge presents solutions that are not just competitively rated, but also customised to provide insurance that is appropriate and relevant to the client’s case.
Accelerate doesn’t just offer speed, convenience and certainty to solicitors and law firms, but also peace of mind to clients, with premiums deferred and contingent to ensure there is nothing to pay if the case is lost, and staged to reduce the cost, should the claim settle early.
Talking about Accelerate, Matthew Amey, a Director at TheJudge said: “Finding ATE cover to suit the particular needs of each individual case was always a bit of an arduous task. Accelerate makes it much quicker and easier to see what options may be available, compare them, get a formal quotation and, ultimately, protect the client.”
It is now just over a year since ARAG first made Recourse Options available on Accelerate, and we’ve watched the platform go from strength to strength. It works because it solves a problem and provides genuine benefit to solicitors and their clients.
