Solicitor Insurance - The 2007 Solicitor Professional Indemnity Insurance Season Has Begun

For the vast majority of people October 1st every year has no particular significance. In fact it’s just another day of the year. For Solicitors and legal professionals in the UK though the date is a little more memorable. October 1st is when (for most) if they haven’t sorted their Professional Indemnity Insurance for the coming year they simply cannot trade.

So with their very livelihood dependant on an insurance policy it seems with summer (yeah right!) now upon us a few signs that the Solicitor Insurance season is under way have started to show.


Solicitor Insurance season is with us reason 1 – Go to your favourite search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN, ASK etc) and type in Insurance Solicitor (according to Yahoo in May 2007 this was the most typed in phrase or keywords for Solicitor Professional Indemnity or Insurance for Solicitors).

What you’ll find is a whole host of insurance companies all advertising or promoting their facilities for the current season. Insurance brokers and insurance companies alike all fighting to get the best position and get their name ahead of their competitors. A sure sign indeed that the Solicitor PI season is well underway.


Solicitor Insurance season is with us reason 2 – Pick up your favourite legal magazine or visit your favourite legal website (Solicitors Journal, The Lawyer, Legal Week, Legal Day etc) and like with the search engines you’ll notice a few changes in the type of advertisement contained within the publication or on the site. These will range from companies you’ve heard of and with a global brand or smaller, independent companies who all ultimately want the same thing – to quote for your forthcoming Solicitor Insurance and hopefully to place your business.


Solicitor Insurance season is with us reason 3 - This applies if you’re actually working for one of the insurance brokers or insurance companies looking to provide Solicitor PI Insurance. You’d have noticed the start of the PI season as there’s every chance you’d have been contacted by magazines in recent months asking if you wanted to advertise your services with them. In fact you may continue to be contacting right up until October 1st with that offer of a last minute deal that is only available until the end of the day and that if you don’t sign up by then you’ll never get that rate again! Like the DFS sale yeah?


The truth is that unless you’re a solicitor the above will have no real relevance or indeed interest to you. And if truth be known even if you are a solicitor there’s still every chance it’s of little interest to you at this precise moment in time. After all with holidays, work, family, flooding, Wimbledon and a million and one other things to occupy your mind and time, insurance (and even your vital solicitor insurance) is only really important when you’re either looking to buy it (so perhaps round about now but maybe not quite yet) or when you’re looking to make a claim.

If neither of these apply to you then thanks for getting this far and have a great summer (if it ever arrives). If you need to make a claim I suggest you contact your current insurance provider. If however you need a quote for your solicitors professional indemnity insurance then pick up your favourite legal magazine, get on the internet and search or maybe, just maybe visit http://www.solicitorpi.com/ and see how they can help you.

The 2007 Solicitor Professional Indemnity Insurance Season Has Begun so Happy Shopping.

Childcare Costs continue to rise but what about Nursery Insurance?

Protection, safety, education and care for children seemingly comes’ at a price as childcare costs for pre-school children continues to rise. This article looks at what nurseries, day cares, kindergartens’ and out of school clubs can do to help keep their costs under control by saving money.

According to the Daycare Trusts Childcare Costs Survey 2007, childcare costs for pre-school children in England continue to steadily rise. An example being that for a child under the age of 2 in England, the typical cost of a full time nursery place has risen by 6% in the past year to £7900 per year (or £152 per week).

And the typical out of school club is now £38 for 15 hours in England and Scotland with the cost £34 for out of school clubs in Wales.

So if parents are having to pay more for child care facilities it would seem logical that nurseries and other child care providers would look at making sure they remain competitive by making sure their own expenditure is constantly reviewed and kept in order.

On such way in which nurseries can possible make savings (which in turn could be passed onto customers) is to reduce the amount they pay for nursery business insurance. And yet with so many insurance companies and insurance brokers all trying to secure business (with offers of low cost insurance) it can sometimes be hard for nurseries and nursery owners to know in which direction to turn to ensure they not only get the right premium but also the right cover, service and experience from their insurance provider.

Help is now however available to nurseries in the form of specialist nursery insurance products available from the likes of Northern Counties Insurance Brokers. Specialist nursery insurance policies allow nurseries to benefit from business insurance cover tailored to their exact needs. This means that nurseries, day care, pre-schools, kindergartens and out of school clubs can pick and choose exactly what cover they want (rather than having cover they don’t really need). The result being that they can save time (as an insurance broker like Northern Counties will search the market for them) and ultimately save money on their nursery insurance.

Another benefit of using a specialist nursery insurance broker is that because they have experience of the pre-school sector they can offer you advice and guidance on health and safety and risk management that could not only reduce your exposure to risk but once again reduce your nursery insurance premiums.

Nursery Insurance Brokers like Northern Counties often also employ dedicated in-house claims managers so if you and your nursery so suffer a loss and need to make a claim they will work on your behalf to make sure it is settled as quickly and as favourably as possible.

So with fast nursery insurance quotes available online or on the phone it has never been easier for nurseries to see how much they can save on their nursery insurance. A simply visit to a website or phone call could see massive insurance savings, expert advice and a fast and friendly service.

Whilst other forms of insurance are very often only decided on price the benefit of using a nursery insurance expert is that you don’t have to sacrifice quality for a lower premium. If anything the opposite is actually true as many nursery experts have years of experience and knowledge of the pre-school sector so you can quality all the way.

And with parents looking for more in terms of service and quality from nurseries, there is no reason why nurseries shouldn’t also look for the same from their service providers.

Just because the cost of childcare continues to rise it doesn’t mean the cost of your nursery business insurance has to as well so shop around, find an expert and see how you and your nursery can benefit.

Why Parents and Nurseries Want The Same Things

What’s the most important thing in your life? Depending on your age, sex and general outlook this could range from your house and car to your job or friends. For many people though the most important thing in their lives is their children.

This article looks at what parents look for when in comes to care and education for their kids and why the Nurseries who look after them look for similar qualities from their service providers.

So you’ve had children and they’re now at a stage where you need to look into Nurseries, Day Cares or Kindergartens to help look after them. Here are just a few questions that parents looking for child care facilities for their children may want answering:


- Are they a quality establishment?

- Do they have a good reputation?

- Are they well established?

- Are they local?

- Are their staff friendly and approachable?

- Do you trust them?

- Will they provide you with peace of mind?


And if you’re the owner or manager of a Nursery having a USP (or unique selling proposition) for your Nursery could be the difference between getting parents to trust you with their children’s care needs or not.

Your USP could be that you’ve achieved a good OFSTED rating or it could be that you’re local. And as with other industries, knowing, understanding and acting on the needs of your customers will give you an advantage over other Nurseries.

Here then are just a few things parents may look for when choosing a Nursery:

1. OFSTED registered. If you are make sure your registration certificate and current certificate of insurance are displayed together in a prominent position. This will give parents added peace of mind.

2. Are you a member of a professional organisation? Not only does being a member of organisations like the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) give you and your staff useful information but it also shows parents you are serious about their children’s needs.

3. Nurseries that have received recognition. Has your Nursery gained any kite-marks of excellence? Perhaps Investors in People, Investors in Children or the NDNA’s quality counts. If so make sure the parents of your children and the parents of children looking to use your Nursery know about it.

4. As well as providers of Nursery Insurance rewarding good health and safety parents will also be asking themselves a series of questions about your Nursery. Questions like:

Do you have a clean and safe outside play area?

Is your Nursery welcoming? Is it bright, clean and well decorated?

Is the equipment in the Nursery safe and clean?

What food do you provide? How often are your menu’s updated? Can you cater for special diets?

Do your current children look happy?

Likewise do your staff look happy, calm, confident and relaxed and are they dressed well?

What are your staff to children ratios?

How much will it cost me and what will I get for my money? Will I have to pay extra for meals, nappies etc?

By having answers to these questions readily available to parents there’s every chance they will place their children with you and recommend you to other parents.

Parents look for quality and a Nursery they can trust when it comes to their child’s day care. If their children’s welfare is the most important thing in their life it makes perfect sense that they will undertake research and take on board recommendations to find the very best childcare solutions for their children.

Likewise Nursery owners looking for quality, value for money and a company they can trust when it comes to all types of service provider including their Nursery Insurance should also make sure they do the same.

Nursery owners can find quality service providers like Nursery Insurance Brokers by searching the internet or by talking to other Nurseries to find out which service providers work best for them.

If you’re a parent or nursery owner don’t settle for anything less.

DIY or GSI? You decide

Whether you love DIY (do it yourself) or are of the GSI (get someone in) generation you need to make sure you do things right. This article looks at differences between DIY and GSI when it comes to building and home improvements.

With the seemingly massive increase in home improvement TV shows and the real desire amongst people to make a house a home it seems modern society is split into 2 distinct camps when it comes to home improvements.

First there’s the DIY brigade who want to do it themselves and can think of nothing better than trawling around DIY stores on a bank holiday weekend for that elusive nail / curtain ring / kitchen drawer handle etc.

There appears to be 2 main reasons why DIY enthusiasts are so passionate about their hobby. The first and main reason why DIY is such big business throughout the UK, USA and indeed across the globe is the sense of achievement of actually designing, planning and completing work on your own home or business.

Afterall what can be more satisfying than knowing the very home you live in is how it is (hopefully in a good way) down to your hard work and effort?

Another reason why DIY is so popular is because of the envisaged savings of actually doing the work yourself as opposed to getting someone in to do it for you. Clearly your actual DIY skills may have a huge impact on whether this is actually true or not as (if you’re anything like me when it comes to DIY) whereas a professional builder, painter & decorator, roofer etc may take a few hours to do a job it could take you several days, weeks or indeed months in work, starting again and even more work.

But with the ease of actually doing DIY – from buying materials online and actually hiring equipment (from paint strippers and sanders to mini-diggers and excavators for bigger jobs) it has perhaps never been easier to undertake and run your own DIY project.

And yet with that in mind recent years has seen a new (or perhaps they’ve always been with us) type of person when it comes to home improvements. The GSI (or get someone in) generation would prefer to hire an expert to do work for them rather than go to the trouble of hiring the equipment and doing the work themselves. You could argue that the GSI brigade are lazy and have too much disposable income. However another argument could be that they just want their home to look as good as possible and therefore hiring a qualified and experienced professional to do work is the best route to go down.

Whatever you think of DIY or GSI there’s every chance you fall into one of the two camps. Or perhaps you like to mix and match depending on your skills and budget.

Either way if you’re doing extensive work at home and are hiring equipment or indeed if you hire equipment to the DIY people of the world you can now make sure you are protected at all time with Plant Hire Insurance. Affordable protection and peace of mind for your Plant Hire Insurance, Liability Insurance and Construction Insurance is now available from Northern Counties Insurance Brokers – The UK Business Insurance Brokers.

How to find low cost Charity Insurance

If you run, manage or are responsible for a charities budget you’ll know more than most just how important every penny is. And if your job is also to make sure your Charity gets the very best deal on your Charity Insurance then these tips from the UK Social Welfare Insurance Broker could be just what you need.

To start with it’s important to remember that all types of charity, voluntary and not-for-profit organization could be saving money on their charity insurance and liability insurance premiums. From registered charities employing hundreds of staff to community and voluntary groups on a much smaller scale help could now be at hand.

And regardless of your organizations size and budgets if you follow these simple but highly effective tips the amount you pay for your Charity Insurance could be less than ever before. All without having to sacrifice coverage, excess and service.

The first tip when looking for Charity Insurance is therefore to use an insurance provider who actually understands your needs. It’s all very well buying a one size fits all insurance policy but does it actually give you the cover you need? Ultimately that is what your charity or organization actually needs so make sure you use a company or insurance broker who understands what you need, can offer you advice and guidance aimed at reducing your exposure to risk and who has the facilities to tailor a policy to your specific needs and in the process can reduce your premiums.

And if using a Charity Insurance expert is most likely to bring about you getting the right insurance cover for your charity for less, how can you find these so called Charity Insurance experts?

Well the internet has certainly made this job easier as a simple search using a search engine is likely to yield a list of experts in all types of insurance. However a company saying they are experts for charity insurance is no guarantee that they actually are! Therefore it’s probably best to pick up the phone and actually ask them a few questions. That’s right, ask questions rather than just wait for them to ask you. This way you can find out what makes them experts and how you can benefit from using them. Ask things such as, who do they use? How long have they been providing charity insurance? What experience do they have? Do this and your chances of finding the right charity insurance for your organization is likely to increase – and whilst your insurance premiums don’t!

Another tip which could help you save money on your charity insurance is one which at first sight may not seem right but give it a go and there’s every chance it will work. Tip number 2 when it comes to finding low cost charity insurance is therefore to be totally honest when you are asked what you are paying for your insurance at the moment. Most people when asked such a question by an insurance company or insurance broker won’t tell them. They think that by doing so they are somehow unlikely to get the best quote in return. The truth is you are far more likely to get the best quote if the company has a price to beat. That doesn’t mean that you should make up a price as if the price you give is too low there’s every chance the insurance provider will know this and in many cases won’t be able to beat it – or indeed quote.

If you follow these 2 simply but highly effective tips there is every chance the price you pay for your charity insurance will reduce. Give it a go and see if it works.

How to find low cost Charity Insurance has been produced by Mark Burdett, Marketing Manager of Northern Counties Insurance Brokers – The UK Social Welfare Insurance Brokers and Charity Insurance Experts. For further information on Charity Insurance visit www.northerncounties.com/charity-insurance.php

Planes, Trains and Auto....Insurance (well Solicitor Insurance actually)

There are many historic dates in history ranging from 14 February for lovers to 25 December for Christians and lovers of buying and receiving presents.


So what about 1 October? And why is October 1st significant when it comes to planes, trains and lawyers?

Well let’s start with the planes as on 1 October in 1881 the American Engineer and aviation pioneer William Edward Boeing was born in Detroit, Michigan. The name Boeing remains one of the most recognizable throughout the aviation world even now over half a century since his death.



So what about the trains then? And why is October 1 such an important date in the railway world? This time we have to go back to just October 1st 1964 which is when the world’s first high speed railway, the Tokaido Shinkansen (or the Japanese Bullet train), opened between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka. By it’s 40th anniversary in 2004 over 4.16 billion passengers had traveled on the Tokaido route and it today remains the world’s most heavily traveled railway route.





So that brings us onto modern day living and the significance of the date of October 1st on lawyers and solicitors.

Well for UK solicitors and legal professionals the date may not have the same global impact as Boeing or the Bullet Train but October 1st still remains a significant date due to changes in the year 2000 when the Law Society opened the way for Solicitors Professional Indemnity Insurance to be sold via the Commercial Insurance market when the Solicitor Indemnity Fund (SIF) ended.

This change in the legal profession meant that for the vast majority of UK solicitors the date of October 1st has become surnonimous with their Solicitor Professional Indemnity Insurance renewal.

Since 2000 we’ve seen:

Solicitor fee income increasing by on average 7% per year

Solicitor PI claims increasing by around 5% per year

Premium income falling with 2006 showing a fall of around 10% from £234 million to £211 million

The compulsory limit of cover for solicitors doubling to £2 million from £1 million


So with more fee income, more claims and more cover you might expect premiums to rise but the trend has been for solicitors insurance to fall. For solicitors this of course is great news and no doubt 2007 will once again mean more insurance providers fighting for a slice of the solicitors insurance PI.


For most of us this means very little but for solicitors, lawyers and UK legal professionals this means that in order to continue doing business they have to make sure their firms Solicitor Insurance is in place and renewed by October 1st.

Business Insurance and specifically Professional Indemnity Insurance for Solicitors is a highly competitive market so firms such as Northern Counties Insurance Brokers (The UK’s Solicitor Insurance Brokers) have set up facilities aimed at making the purchase of Solicitor Insurance as simple as possible.

With online quote facilities, SMS quote request facilities and above all a fast, friendly and reliable service at hard to beat Solicitor Insurance premiums it has never been easier for UK Solicitors to see how much they can save.

For further information on Solicitor Insurance visit http://www.solicitorpi.com/