Legal Malpractice Insurance Pennsylvania: aggressive comparison shopping to find you the best coverage and price in PA. Short online application. Fast, free quotes from all major “A”-rated insurers.
We’re Lawyers Insurance Group, legal malpractice insurance brokers serving Pennsylvania.
Fast Facts:
- Most solo practitioners pay $500 – $1,000 for their first policy. A 2-atty. firm will pay slightly less than double that; a 3-atty. firm, slightly less than triple that, etc. Premiums are highest in the Greater Philadelphia area, lowest in the Pittsburgh area.
- The premium is based mainly on your firm’s atty. count, practice areas, policy limits, and county.
- Criminal defense lawyers pay the least, then immigration; family and business; bankruptcy and employment; PI, real estate, and trusts-estates, and patent, securities, and class action lawyers, who pay the most.
- The minimum policy limits are $100,000 per claim/$300,000 annual aggregate, followed by $250,000/$500,000, which costs about 35% more, and then $500,000/$1,000,000, $1,000,000/$1,000,000, etc. Each higher level costs 10% – 25% more. Most solos choose one of the first two levels.
- Attorneys who practice 26 or fewer hours per week, qualify for a part-time rate, which will reduce the premium by 25% – 50%.
Apply, Quote, Buy:
- Fill out our short on-line application or download it below.
- We’ll send your firm’s application to all viable insurers, based on its risk profile (firm size, practice areas, county, etc.), and request proposals at different limits and deductibles, so you can make the optimal choice.
- Some insurers allow brokers to input a firm’s application, and receive instant quotes. We’ll email you those insurers’ quotes, shortly after you apply, and advise you if any of them are the best available, or if you’re better off waiting a few days, for the other insurers to offer proposals.
- We’ll explain the coverage and policy limits, answer your questions, and send you any insurer’s policy to review, if desired.
- To accept any of the instant quotes, sign the quote sheet that we’ll email you. To accept a proposal from an insurer that doesn’t offer instant quotes, you’ll have to complete its long application to receive a binding quote, which should match the proposal. We’ll fill it out to the extent possible, based on the online application that you completed, and send it to you to finish.
- If you accept any insurer’s binding quote, your coverage will be in place.
- Pay the premium in full or finance it (10% down, followed by 11 monthly payments).
Contact me, if you have any questions or want help with our online application:
Curt Cooper, Founder and Managing Broker
(202) 802-6415 | ccooper ‘at’ lawyersinsurer.com
Pennsylvania Insurance Department License #737521
National Association of Insurance Commissioners Reg. #1017031
Here’s a partial list of the insurers that we’ll send your application to, and the administrator of each insurer’s program:
Arch (C&R Insurance Services)
Aspen (Brown & Brown/Lawyers Protector Plan)
Attorney Protective (Amity Insurance)
AXA/XL
AXIS (Aon Affinity)
Everest (Embroker)
Genstar (Founders Specialty)
Hanover (Pearl Insurance)
Markel (Risk Placement Services)
ProAssurance (ProLawyer Insurance/LawyerCare program)
Wesco (Synergy Professional Insurance)
Westport (Lockton Affinity)
Zurich (Couch Braunsdorf)
- To learn more about legal malpractice insurance, visit these pages:
Legal Malpractice Insurance FAQs – Coverage, Limits, Cost, etc.
Legal Malpractice Insurance Policy
Legal Malpractice Insurers
Ia. Legal Malpractice Insurance Pennsylvania – Application Help for First-Time Buyers
1. Practice areas grid: allocate your billings by percentage per practice area, i.e., 30% family law, 20% personal injury law, etc. Your answers will greatly affect the premium.
If your firm has been open for a year or more, then fill out the grid based on your gross billings for the last 12 months. If it’s been open less than 12 months, fill out the grid based on your billings to date, plus your projections for the remainder of your first 12 months.
The application asks when your firm was founded, so the insurers will know if your figures are projections, and they won’t penalize you, if your projections turn out to be inaccurate. When your policy renews next year, you’ll have a year of data, and will be able to report your practice areas accurately.
Your coverage won’t be restricted to the practice areas that you list on the application.
2. Risk management: docket/calendaring, conflicts-checking, and use of engagement letters/non-engagement/termination letters.
You won’t get quotes unless you have at least basic risk management procedures in place, so don’t apply until you do.
Even if you don’t handle litigated matters, and thus don’t need a docketing system, you’ll still have deadlines to meet, and the insurers will expect you to use a primary and back-up calendar.
If you answer the questions “no”, i.e., you don’t use any calendaring or conflicts-checking tools, or a retainer agreement or engagement letter, then every insurer will decline your application. See #19 on our FAQs page for a list of acceptable tools. Some manual tools are listed, but computerized tools, i.e., practice management software, are preferred.
3. Back-up attorney: most insurers require sole practitioners to have a back-up; several insurers require the back-up’s name and address.
The person’s role is to contact your clients and any other relevant parties, and obtain any necessary postponement/extension until you return, if you incur an accident, illness, etc., that leaves you unable to handle your cases. In an extreme situation, the back-up will arrange for replacement counsel, or take over your cases, although that’s not required.
There’s virtually no liability risk, because the back-up doesn’t establish an atty.-client relationship, unless he/she takes over the cases.
Any attorney barred in your state of domicile will suffice. Most attorneys turn to a former colleague as their back-up.
Ib. Legal Malpractice Insurance Pennsylvania – How Our Process Benefits You
Does your firm have the best possible terms on its malpractice insurance, i.e., the broadest coverage at the lowest price?
The only way to find out is to test the market.
That’s where we come in.
We submit each firm’s application to all viable insurers, based on its risk profile – typically 7 – 10 – and obtain proposals at the firm’s current terms, and at policy limits one or more levels higher. If the best proposals are close, we solicit another round of proposals from the ‘finalists’.
This aggressive comparison shopping lets us consistently obtain much better coverage and pricing for firms than they currently have.
More than a dozen major insurers cover Pennsylvania firms, and they compete fiercely for good risks. If your firm hasn’t incurred a claim in five or more years, and hasn’t shopped for competing quotes in two or more years, then one or more of those insurers will likely offer it much better terms than it currently has.
Arch, AXA, and Zurich usually offer the best terms to Pennsylvania firms.
To obtain no-cost, no-obligation quotes from these and other ‘A’-rated legal malpractice insurers, send us your most recent application, or complete our short application, either online or by downloading it.
We’ll help you compare the competing quotes to your current terms, and make the best decision.
There’s no risk, and a potentially great reward.
II. Legal Malpractice Insurance Pennsylvania – Request Quotes
- If you’re ready to get the best terms on your firm’s malpractice insurance, fill out our on-line application, or download, complete, and return our one-page premium estimate form:
Online:
Family Law Online Application
Immigration Law Online Application
Injury Law Online Application (PI, Med. Mal. , WC, SSDI )
IP Law Online Application
Real Estate Law Online Application
Trusts & Estates Law Online Application
All Other Practice Areas Online Application
Download:
Employment Law firms
Family Law firms
Injury Law firms (plaintiffs Med. Mal., Personal Injury, SSDI, Workers Comp.)
Intellectual Property Law firms
Tax Law firms
Trusts-Estates-Wills-Elder Law firms
All Other firms
NOTES:
• If you filled out an application or premium estimate form for another broker or any insurer, send us that, instead of filling out our form.
• All proposals that we obtain for you are no-cost, no-obligation.
If you accept any of them, then the insurer that offered it will pay us a percentage of the premium as a commission.
That’s our only compensation; we don’t charge any fees.
We thus have every incentive to find you the best terms available in the market.
III. Legal Malpractice Insurance Pennsylvania – Attorney Feedback
“I recently worked with Curtis…I thought he did an excellent job staying in touch with me and giving me fair advice, without pressure to purchase anything in particular…he actually advised me to simply renew with my current carrier, despite the fact that it would not have led to any monetary compensation for him…” (Rating: 5 stars out of 5.)
Full review: http://www.yelp.com/biz/lawyers-insurance-group-washington
We received this email from the owner of a law firm for whom we procured malpractice coverage after its existing coverage was non-renewed:
“From beginning to end, you have served us so well, keeping me informed every step of the way. Thank you Curtis! I will recommend you without hesitation to any lawyer in need of a professional insurance broker.”
IV. Who We Serve
We serve new and established law firms of all sizes and in all practice areas, throughout Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, Chester to New Castle, and all points in between.
V. Legal Malpractice Insurance Explained
- Shopping For Legal Malpractice Insurance – There Is More Than Cost to Consider
- Findlaw’s Guide to Legal Malpractice Insurance
- Legal Malpractice Insurance – 10 Questions Buyers Should Ask
- Findlaw’s Glossary of Legal Malpractice Insurance Terms
These Links Are To Pages On This Website: - Understanding Your Legal Malpractice Insurance Policy Part I: Claims-Made v Occurrence Coverage
- Understanding Your Legal Malpractice Insurance Policy, Part II: Claims-Made Policy Coverage Triggers
- Understanding Your Legal Malpractice Insurance Policy, Part III: Claims-Made Policy Coverage Gaps – Switching Insurers
- Understanding Your Legal Malpractice Insurance Policy, Part IV: Avoiding Claims-Made Policy Coverage Gaps
- Understanding Your Legal Malpractice Insurance Policy, Part V: Why Claims-Made Coverage Causes Your Premium to Double In The First Five Years
- Legal Malpractice Insurance Buying Guide for Attorneys
- Legal Malpractice Insurance FAQs
- Legal Malpractice Insurance Policy
- Legal Malpractice Insurers
VI. Reduce Your Risk of Committing Legal Malpractice
- Top 10 Ways to Avoid Legal Malpractice
- 10 Tips to Avoid Lawyers Can Avoid Committing Malpractice
- Legal Malpractice on Trial: Avoiding Claims
- Top Tips For Avoiding Legal Malpractice Claims
- What Is Legal Malpractice and How Can Lawyers Avoid It?
- Legal Malpractice Traps and How To Avoid Them
- The Most Common Causes of Legal Malpractice
Calendaring/Docketing Best Practices
- You Get What You Pay For – Best Practices In Choosing a Calendaring Solution
- Best Practices In Legal Calendaring Management
- How To Minimize Docketing Errors
- Lawyers Mutual Calendar and Docket Management and Forms
- Best Legal Calendaring and Docketing Software – 2019 Comparison
Conflict of Interest Avoidance Best Practices
- How Lawyers Should Deal With a Conflict of Interest
- Conduct Deep, Wide, and Ongoing Checks to Avoid Conflicts of Interest
- Conflict of Interest Avoidance Best Practices
- How To Do A Law Firm Conflicts Checks
- Features of a Good Conflict of Interest Checking System
- From Paper to Computers – Conflict of Interest Checking Options
Engagement Letter/Retainer Agreement Best Practices
- Why Attorney Retainer Agreements Must Be in Writing
- The Well-Drafted Retainer Agreement
- Sample Attorney Engagement Letter
- Attorney Engagement Letter Checklist
- New York State Bar Association Sample Engagement Letter
- American Bar Association Engagement Letter Primer
Billing Practices to Increase Realization Rates and Avoid Fee Suits
- 10 Best Law Firm Billing and Invoicing Practices
- 7 Invoicing Best Practices for Law Firms
- Best Practices For Client Billing
- Better Billing Practices For Law Firms
- The 5 Best Billing Practices for Profitable Law Firms
- Lawyerist’s Reviews of Legal Time and Billing Software Programs
Visit our other state pages:
Legal Malpractice Insurance California
Legal Malpractice Insurance Connecticut
Legal Malpractice Insurance Georgia
Legal Malpractice Insurance Maryland
Legal Malpractice Insurance Michigan
Legal Malpractice Insurance New Jersey
Legal Malpractice Insurance New York
Legal Malpractice Insurance Ohio
Legal Malpractice Insurance South Carolina
Legal Malpractice Insurance Texas
Legal Malpractice Insurance Virginia