Chartis UK to withdraw from new solicitors’ PI business

The Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) renewal date is fast approaching and Chartis UK, a leading provider of Professional Indemnity Insurance, announce that they will not be writing new business in this sector.
Chartis, amongst other insurers, recently criticised the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority’s (SRA) strategy for reforming the Assigned Risk Pool (ARP) and cite this as the reasoning behind their decision.
Vice President, Financial Lines at Chartis UK, Steve Bonnington says:
“Our analysis indicates that the transition from a recessionary economic environment may not be a smooth one.  This suggests continued poor claims experience in the market as a whole and the ARP in particular.
This, combined with limited changes to the minimum terms and conditions and the continued presence of the ARP in 2011 means that we believe the market will continue to be challenging.
Regretfully therefore, Chartis has elected to moderate the capacity it deploys in the sector and will not be writing new solicitors’ PI business in 2011, preferring to focus on renewals within our existing book”.
There have recently been new entrants into the PII market place who say that there needs to be stabilisation of the PII market place in order to make life more comfortable for high street firms but this recent announcement from Chartis UK is not likely to aid this.
In an already stretched industry what effect do you think this announcement will have?
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