Frequently Asked Questions

If you are establishing a new law practice in NSW, you must first contact the Law Society of NSW Registry on (02) 9926 0156 or registry@lawsociety.com.au to register your information.

Once your new law practice has been registered, the Registry will advise Lawcover of your new practice’s details, including its commencement date.

Lawcover will then send you an information pack, which contains details of how to complete your law practice’s insurance application. If you are ready to do this now, please click here.

If you are establishing a new law practice in the NT, you must first contact the Law Society NT to register your information. You can then contact our Insurance Services team at insuranceservices@lawcover.com.au or 1800 650 748 to arrange for an information pack to be sent to you. This pack contains details of how to complete your law practice’s insurance application. If you are ready to do this now, please click here.

If you are establishing a new law practice in the ACT, you must first contact the ACT Law Society to register your information. You can then contact our Insurance Services team at insuranceservices@lawcover.com.au or 1800 650 748 to arrange for an information pack to be sent to you. This pack contains details of how to complete your law practice’s insurance application. If you are ready to do this now, please click here.

If you have all the required information to hand, it will be a simple process to complete your online application. The following information is required before you commence the process:

• Your law practice’s gross fee income for the past two years
• Your law practice’s estimated gross fee income for the coming year
• Non Lawcover claims history, if any
• Prior practice history, if applicable
• Your law practice’s current ISO 9001 – Quality Management Systems Certificate, if you are accredited.

Click here to download the 2024/25 proposal checklist

If you have forgotten your password, please follow these steps:

1. Go to lawcover.com.au and click on Insurance Login

2. Click the Forgotten Your Password button

3. Enter your Law Practice No.

4. Enter your primary insurance contacts’ email address

5. An email will be sent to your primary contact containing a verification code to reset your password

6. Once your password has been reset, you can complete your insurance application online.

If you need any further assistance, please contact the Lawcover Insurance Services team at insuranceservices@lawcover.com.au.

No, other payment methods are available, including credit card payments by phone and cheque. However online payments are faster, meaning that your tax invoice and policy are available sooner. We are also able to notify the Law Society of NSW, the ACT Law Society or the Law Society NT that your insurance arrangements are in place earlier. This means that the Practising Certificates for you, and any solicitors who work at your law practice, can be released earlier.

For new law practices, the due date for completing your application will be printed on the letter we send you with our information pack, which provides details of how to log in.

For renewing law practices, we will email your law practice’s contacts when renewal is open each year. This is usually in April and you will be able to log in and complete your application then.

It is important that NSW and ACT practices complete their application by 15 May each year to coincide with your practising certificate renewal. Law practices in the NT should complete their application by 31 May each year.

In most cases, your law practice’s premium is calculated using your Gross Fee Income (GFI) for the previous financial year. Your premium is based on the preceding year’s GFI because any claims made against you are likely to arise from legal services you have undertaken in the past year. We may make an exception, at our discretion, if the GFI you estimate for the forthcoming year has substantially increased or decreased, for example, if you take on a new client or instructions which will result in higher earnings. Alternatively, you may be unable to work for a period and your earnings decrease. In these cases, we may calculate your premium using an average of the GFI you declare for each year.

All law practices with the same excess option selected and the same GFI pay the same base premium (prior to adjustments for interstate offices, claims loadings or discounts, risk management discounts or criminal law specialisation discounts, as applicable), irrespective of the number of principals, solicitors or other staff they employ.

Gross Fee income (GFI) includes:

• All fees received or receivable by the law practice or you which have been earned from the provision of legal services by partners or legal practitioner directors and employees* of the law practice or by you and
• Internal costs and disbursements charged to clients (for example, photocopying, postage and couriers).

It excludes:

• All payments received by the law practice or you for third party disbursements** or fees for services rendered by independent contractors*** to the law practice (whether or not those persons are providing legal or other services to the law practice)
• All payments received by the law practice or you which are earned from an area of practice where you have a statutory immunity from suit under legislation in force in Australia
• All fees that remain unpaid by your client for more than 18 months
• Any GST or other taxes that the law practice collects and
• All fees generated by an interstate or overseas office that arranges its primary PII through an insurance provider other than Lawcover.

*Employees include legally qualified personnel, paralegals, articled clerks, special counsel, secondees, locums, office and clerical staff employed by the law practice or a service entity of the law practice. However, some consultants may be considered to be independent contractors – see *** below.

**Third party disbursements means amounts paid or payable by you to a third party for goods and services obtained for the benefit of a client, such as barristers’ fees, medical report fees, experts’ fees, court filing fees, mediators’ fees, search fees and investigators’ fees. They do not include amounts paid or payable for goods or services obtained for the benefit of the law practice, such as referral fees.

*** An independent contractor is a person who is not employed by the law practice or you, but who is engaged to provide certain services to you or your clients, and can include barristers, surveyors, auditors, accountants and investigators. Independent contractors are not covered by your law practice’s PII policy and are responsible for making their own insurance arrangements. For more information on consultants, please click here.

If you, or the law practice, do not generate any income from legal practice, you should declare a ‘nil’ fee income.

You may request a premium review if your gross fee income (GFI) has substantially increased or decreased from that which you originally estimated.  A statutory declaration stating the reasons for any decrease in GFI is required.  However, you do not need to complete a statutory declaration if you declare an increase in your GFI. To request a statutory declaration, or to advise us of an increase in your GFI, please contact our Insurance Services team at insuranceservices@lawcover.com.au.  We will then contact you to advise you of any alteration to your PII premium as a result of the change in your declared GFI.

Provide your best estimate. A guide might be to examine what you have earned in the last year, or perhaps in the past six months and then double it for projection purposes.

You must answer all the questions regarding your law practice’s claims history. If your law practice has at any time been insured at a primary $2 million level (compulsorily) in another state, Lawcover will not have details of your claims experience during that period. Further, there may be matters that you have not notified to us that should be notified.

If you have purchased a law practice or acquired its business, you may become its successor practice, as defined in the Lawcover PII policy. The gross fee income (GFI) of the prior practice (the law practice you have purchased or acquired) should be included in your GFI.

Having a prior practice may affect your law practice’s premium, especially if it has had claims. When considering whether to purchase or acquire a law practice, it is advisable to enquire into the professional performance of that practice and whether there have been any claims made against it. You can request that the law practice provide you with its claims history, which it can obtain from Lawcover (or other state PII provider).

For a more detailed explanation and guide to issues for consideration when purchasing or acquiring a law practice, please click here.

You should notify Lawcover if you or any of your principals or employees are aware, or reasonably should have been aware of:

• A matter, fact or circumstance that might give rise to a claim against you; or
• A claim made against you or your principals or employees.

Your premium will not attract a claims loading as a result of notifying a circumstance that might give rise to a claim against your law practice, but notifying an actual claim made against your law practice may result in a claims loading being applied to your future premium.

You can contact our claims team on (02) 9264 8855 to discuss any matter with no obligation. We will not consider an enquiry to be a notification until it is advised to us in writing.

To access a Claim or Circumstance Notification Form, please click here.

If you are establishing an Incorporated Legal Practice (ILP), you must first contact your Law Society to register your information. Once it has received your application, your Law Society will update Lawcover with the details of any changes made to your ceased law practice, or the details of your new law practice. We will then contact you to advise you if anything further is required.

In many cases, the ILP is essentially the same law practice for our premium rating purposes. Provided the premium has been paid on behalf of the old practice, a policy can usually be issued to the new ILP, providing cover for legal services provided by both the ILP and the former (prior) practice.

However, if the GFI estimated by the ILP changes substantially, a premium reassessment may be necessary.

The number of principals, solicitors or other staff at your law practice is not used to calculate your PII premium. It is the gross fee income (GFI) of the practice that primarily determines your premium. Your premium would only increase in the following year if your new solicitor or other staff generates increased GFI for and on behalf of your law practice.

However, you should be aware that if you take on a principal who has an existing or prior law practice, you may become the successor practice to that law practice. The GFI of the prior practice should then be included in your GFI.

Having a prior practice may affect your law practice’s premium, especially if it has had claims. When considering whether to take on a new principal who has an existing or prior practice, it is advisable to enquire into the professional performance of that practice and especially, its claims history. You can request that the law practice provide you with their claims history which they can obtain from Lawcover (or other state PII provider).

For a more detailed explanation and guide to issues for consideration when purchasing or acquiring a law practice, please click here.

If your law practice requires PII cover over the primary limit of $2 million, Lawcover can offer a range of additional or Top Up PII limits up to a total of $20 million cover, subject to underwriting criteria. Please see the Top Up section of your online application or section 2 of your quotation form for Top Up Insurance quotations.

If your law practice requires quotes for limits other than those supplied on your online application or quotation form, please contact our Insurance Services team at insuranceservices@lawcover.com.au.

For more information on Top Up insurance, or to download a Top Up brochure, please click here.

Under the Lawcover PII policy, a consultant who is determined by us to be an employee of a law practice is covered, whereas an independent contractor is not.

Typically, an independent contractor will be an individual who is not supervised, whose contact with clients is not controlled and whose work is not authorised by the principals or management of the law practice.

Lawcover provides a simple checklist on our website to help determine whether a consultant will be treated as an employee or an independent contractor for the purposes of policy coverage. Our determination allows us to confirm whether that consultant is covered under the law practice’s policy, or whether it is more appropriate for the consultant to make their own insurance arrangements. This in turn will dictate whether the fee income that the consultant generates should be declared to us by the law practice. For more information on consultants and PII, and to download the consultant checklist, please click here.

When a law practice insured by Lawcover ceases and is not succeeded by another law practice, that practice will receive the benefit of ongoing PII cover under one of the Run Off PII policies issued by Lawcover to the Law Society of NSW, the ACT Law Society and the Law Society NT.

The Run Off PII policies are renewed by the Law Society of NSW, the ACT Law Society and the Law Society NT each year, and each policy provides cover for law practices that:

• Have ceased to practice prior to or during the period of insurance
• Were insured by Lawcover at the time they ceased to practice and
• Have not become a prior practice of another law practice

Should a claim be made against the ceased practice, an excess will apply. The current excess is $5,000 each claim, or the excess that applied to the PII policy in force at the time the law practice ceased to provide legal services, whichever is the lower. The excess is subject to a maximum of $10,000 for each law practice in each year, or twice the excess that applied to the PII policy in force at the time the law practice ceased to provide legal services, whichever is the lower.

Lawcover can also arrange Top Up Run Off cover (subject to certain criteria) for law practices that cease to practice and which had purchased Top Up PII insurance from Lawcover for at least three (3) continuous years prior to ceasing.

To find out more about Top Up Run Off cover and how it may apply to you, please contact our Insurance Services team at insuranceservices@lawcover.com.au.

Yes, while Lawcover has facilities available with three premium funders, you are not required to arrange funding with them. You may fund and repay your PII premium by instalment using an alternative premium funder of your choice.

Please ensure that your premium funder settles your premium payment to Lawcover by the due date. This will be 15 May each year, for NSW and ACT law practices renewing their PII policy, and 31 May for renewing NT practices. For new law practices, it will be the date printed on the letter we send you with our information pack.