Choice of Insurance for NSW Solicitors - Recent Developments

15 December 2025

Below is an update in relation to our continued efforts to provide you with choice and competition for your compulsory professional indemnity insurance.

As we reported in our August update, those benefits would have included, for the current practising year (2025-26):

  • Significantly more cost-effective premiums. Premiums would very likely have been 35% to 45% lower on average, as demonstrated by the significant number of inquiries we received.
  • Broader insurance cover, including inquiry cover (which cannot be provided by the Law Society’s wholly owned and controlled insurance subsidiary, Lawcover Insurance).
  • APRA approved and regulated insurance provided by a very large, mutual insurer with a significantly larger capital based than the current monopoly provider.
  • Choice of more than one provider.

As previously reported, the sole reason for the refusal of our policy by the Attorney General of NSW was to maintain Lawcover Insurance as the single provider of compulsory professional indemnity insurance for solicitors with offices only in NSW.

The Attorney General’s determination to continue to endorse the monopoly of the Law Society and Lawcover Insurance is disappointing and, in our view, unjustified. Among other things, it maintains the two-class system which results in the majority of NSW solicitors (i.e. those who have no choice, approximately 70%) paying significantly higher premiums than those who have a choice, with the latter enjoying this significant benefit simply because they maintain an interstate office.

As explained in more detail in our August update, the Attorney General’s role is limited (to the terms and conditions of the policy wording) and only arises if his approval is sought and obtained by a prospective insurance provider, otherwise compulsory insurance relies on approval by reference to compliance with the objective statutory criteria in the Uniform Law. ABC’s policy complied with those criteria and will continue to do so.

We intend to make our policy available for the coming practising year (2026-27). Applications for insurance will commence soon, in the first half of 2026.

We have taken and continue to take steps to introduce choice and competition for your compulsory professional indemnity insurance for the coming practising year, including:

  • Writing to each of the Councillors of the Law Society of NSW (copy here) informing them that ABC intends to distribute its policy in the 2026-27 practicing year; requesting that they refrain from causing Lawcover Insurance to seek approval from the Attorney General so that competition can proceed automatically by way of compliance with the statutory criteria; and repeating our requests to meet to ensure operational arrangements can be put in place smoothly and on a ‘level playing field’ basis.
  • Writing to the Attorney General (copy here) informing him that ABC intends to distribute its policy in the 2026-27 practicing year; inviting him to allow competition to flow automatically in accordance with the objective criteria in the Uniform Law by refusing any application for approval by Lawcover Insurance with the sole apparent objective of circumventing competition by seeking the intervention of the Attorney General to maintain their monopoly; and repeating our requests to meet with him.
  • Writing to all NSW parliamentarians to draw attention to the denial of choice and competition for the majority of NSW solicitors.
  • Awaiting answers to questions in the NSW Parliament, addressed to the Attorney General, in respect of the current insurance monopoly (link here).
  • Monitoring progress and developments (as may be relevant) in respect of a parliamentary inquiry in Western Australia into the Legal Practice Board of Western Australia (link here), the Law Society of NSW’s counterpart “Designated Local Regulatory Authority” in Western Australia.
  • Monitoring steps being taken by members of the Law Society interested in exploring the question of choice and competition and whether the Law Society’s ownership of Lawcover Insurance remains appropriate.
  • Investigating, among other things, whether the denial of market entry to ABC and its insurance provider is in breach of the terms and the spirit of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.

We are very appreciative of the ongoing support we continue to receive.

We will continue providing updates including in relation to any substantive response to the correspondence and questions referred to above.