Key Attributes of Our Mutual Company
Membership Strength
The ALAS membership has never been stronger. We insure 224 firms with approximately 79,000 lawyers, including 92 firms in the Am Law 200 and dozens of prominent regional and boutique firms. We have been highly successful in retaining current members and adding new premier firms. We have had 20 straight years of renewal rates between 98% and 100%, including our renewal for 2024. In addition, a total of 15 new members, including 8 firms in the Am Law 200, have joined us since 2022. Membership in ALAS is exclusive. We only admit firms following a rigorous underwriting process designed to ensure that new firms’ prior claims experience and risk management operations meet our exacting standards.
Financial Strength
With favorable operating results in recent years, the company is financially strong and well capitalized. On May 10, 2024, Fitch reaffirmed our financial strength rating of “A” (Strong) with a Stable Outlook, citing our “…superior business retention, derived through [our] service orientation to member firms in loss prevention and claims management.”
Broad Coverage and Collaborative Claims Management
We provide our firms with the broadest, most secure coverage in the industry, both on paper and in practice. To that end, our experienced claims lawyers work with our firms and defense counsel to manage claims collaboratively. We are committed to providing the expertise and resources necessary to achieve the best results for our firms and the company. We have never had a bad faith claim in our history. No commercial carrier providing lawyers’ professional liability (LPL) coverage can say the same.
Industry-Leading Risk Management Services
Through our loss prevention group, we provide publications, electronic resources, and programs that are unmatched in the industry. Our experienced lawyers provide services that help our members not only mitigate risk but enhance lawyer proficiency and client service.
Third-Party Cyber Liability Coverage and Risk Management
Our policy expressly covers claims and circumstances arising from a breach of client data, including third party coverage for forensic expenses, breach notification and remediation costs, public relations costs, and fines and penalties. We also provide an array of conferences, publications, and programming to our firms to mitigate cyber liability risk.
Support in Mergers and Lateral Hiring
We provide unparalleled due diligence, underwriting, and risk management services in connection with mergers, other combinations, lateral hiring transactions, and the integration process that follows. Our approach focuses on complementing the broader business and strategic objectives of our members.
Data Analytics
We have the most extensive database of LPL underwriting and claims information in the industry. Through our data analytics group, we leverage that information to provide insights and other resources to our firms that address the sources of professional liability risk and ways in which our firms can address them more effectively.
Superior Claims Results and Strong Rate History
In recent years, we have had favorable claims and underwriting experience, highlighted by historically low claims frequency and declining claims severity metrics. These results are materially better than those of commercial carriers, reflecting the benefits of our approach to risk management, claims management, and underwriting. We made no change to our rates for 2024, meaning that in the last decade, we have either decreased rates or held them steady in nine of 10 years. Over that time frame, our LPL rates have declined by nearly 20%. In our programs offering management and employment liability coverage, we have decreased base rates nearly 40% over the past 10 years. We have approximately 80% of our overall lawyer census buying these optional policies from us.
Coverage Advantages of the ALAS Policy
ALAS Policy | Their Policy | |
|---|---|---|
One Insurer Providing Limits up to $100 Million Per ClaimA policy with the highest available limits from a single carrier in the industry. Unlike commercial policies, there are no quota share arrangements or multiple layers, where insurers have several (not joint) liability, can withdraw from the market in any given year, or can take inconsistent positions on coverage and claims resolution. |  |  |
No Coverage Risk from Annual Renewal ProcessContinuous coverage from the same insurer every year, producing a simpler renewal process and eliminating the risk of new carriers springing the “prior knowledge” coverage trap. | | |
Unequivocal Coverage for Punitive DamagesA policy backed by statutory protection for global coverage of punitive, multiple, and exemplary damages, even in jurisdictions that prohibit or restrict the insurability of such damages. | | |
Coverage for Sanctions and Disciplinary ActionsA broad definition of covered claims that includes sanctions and penalties in the nature of compensatory damages, claims for injunctive or administrative sanctions, and defense costs for disciplinary proceedings. | | |
Fee Dispute CoverageCoverage for claims seeking a return of fees and expenses paid to the firm by a client and sought as damages in a covered claim, up to a per claim and aggregate limit. | | |
Coverage for Public Relations CostsCoverage for preapproved public relations costs that are directly related to a covered claim, offering important protection in high-profile matters. | | |
Protection for Innocent Assureds/No Business Enterprise ExclusionA fraud exclusion that does not apply to any assured who did not engage in the alleged misconduct. The absence of a “business enterprise” exclusion that can be used to deny coverage for claims involving the provision of legal services to entities in which a firm lawyer has an ownership or management interest. | | |