Insurance Litigation Unit

As part of our professional and commercial service provision, we know that insurers are often reluctant to take a proactive approach to paying client claims. Often this manifests itself in substantial delays in payment which can be causative of further loss. Sometimes the claim itself or some aspect of it is rejected in its entirety by the underwriter.

These “refusal to indemnify” disputes by underwriters are the most damaging for business owners and the most frustrating for individuals. At a time when financial demands are high, the prospect of entering into a high level insurance dispute with the associated legal costs is the last thing anyone wants.

Interpretation of underwriting provisions is supposedly conducted by an insurer with a view to ensuring that “fairness” exists in the transaction. This “fairness” rarely seems to be acceptable to the insured and we at Applebys have seen insurance disputes for substantial sums simply waived aside by the underwriters with no concern for the losses that accumulate as a consequence of the failure to seek legal opinion.

Insurer underwriters are often blasé of the damage caused by such refusals and they can be surprised by the compounding losses caused by business interruption or cessation of trading. Frequently a claim for losses at £20,000.00 can lead to a catastrophic claim for £2m.

We have an established team of Solicitors who have experience of such disputes. If you have a dispute where the financial value of the claim exceeds £20,000.00 then we can deliver a litigation service for 25% of the outstanding sums (plus disbursements). Should the claim fail then the charges for our services are nil.

We have operated in the areas of property, commercial property, legal expense, motor, motor trader, business interruption / continuity, professional and public indemnity, as well as home, life and employment insurance. We have acted both in complete failure of indemnity claims as well as partial refusal claims, as long as you can meet our minimum outstanding indemnity provision, our Solicitors can assist you.

Contact us today, we can usually set these matters up with you whilst you are online and if you have access to scanned documents we can initiate a claim within 24 hours.