Analysis: How insurance law firms are responding to the coronavirus - virtual forums, video evidence and resolution based on documentary evidence

How are you reducing the number of client visits you are doing in light of Covid-19? Are there any exceptions?

BLM senior partner Matthew Harrington: We have encouraged colleagues to use alternative means of holding meetings with clients, including telephone and video conferencing. We put a hold on external visitors coming to our office at the beginning of March, although there were exceptions at the time for any business critical meetings which had to take place in person, including court hearings. Our client relationship partners are in regular contact with our clients and they’re aware of the steps we’re taking to reduce the risks to our people. In fact, many of them have done the same with regards to business meetings.

BTO partner and head of BTO’s Insurance Group Bill Speirs: Yes. No client visits unless an emergency such as assisting insureds with HSE or Police investigation.

A Clyde & Co spokesperson: Alongside our clients we are following government guidance and seeking to reduce social contact so we are, where possible, exploring other means of communication.

Fenchurch Law managing partner David Pryce: Our level of client meetings so far has not been impacted. All of our meetings (including with clients) are now taking place either by video or audio conference. While our office remains available for ‘business critical’ client meetings, no clients have asked for face-to-face meetings since the Government announced the recent measures.

Kennedys global managing partner Suzanne Liversidge: Yes. All client meetings are taking place as conference calls. The only face-to-face meetings are for mediations, court hearings or what team leaders consider to be ‘business essential’.

Minster Law CEO Shirley Woolham: Our responsibilities to colleagues, customers, business partners and wider society are our priority and in line with government advice we have stopped all face-to-face client visits and any business travel which is non-essential.

We are nevertheless collaborating with our supply chain and business partners, as well as third party insurers to provide the reassurance our customers need that we are continuing to support them on their claims journey.

An RPC spokesperson: Our primary focus is the health and wellbeing of our people and clients. As such we decided to postpone all UK client events and seminars from Monday 16 March until further notice. Events in our Asia offices have been postponed since Monday 3 February. We are continuing to support our clients’ business needs in the normal way, and remain very much functioning as normal from a client point of view.

What practices and technologies are you putting in place to help facilitate less client visits?

Harrington: We are making full use of video and telephone conference facilities such as Mi Collab and we have been in touch with our clients often, keeping them updated on developments at the firm.

Being a national firm with remote working capabilities, our lawyers are used to using different technologies for client meetings, in instances where they do not take place in person. We also use a series of other tools as part of BLM Innovations to interact with our clients, including Forum in which we can securely store and share documents and also video link in with anyone involved in our cases while editing documents and materials live in the meetings.

We also have Collaborate which is our virtual legal environment and Real Time which is our online portal offering live access to case data. It helps clients feel more connected to us because they can get data on-demand and send messages instantly to the claims handler.

Spiers: No client visits to our or their offices and use of video conference and conference call facilities. We are also providing direct telephone access to our fee earners and support staff where they are working from home with a backup team managing an emergency email address and telephone hotline for our insurance clients.

A Clyde & Co spokesperson: Teams across the firm are hosting conference calls, webinars and virtual meetings and ensuring our clients are equipped with the very latest legal updates in regard to the Covid-19 outbreak. We have also launched a coronavirus information hub on our website. Content posted from the hub is shared with clients on a daily basis.

Pryce: We have been using 3CX web meetings and Zoom for video conference calls.

Liversidge: Kennedys is utilising conference calls and Skype for Business far more during these times. A number of our planned events are being run as webinars where possible; and WhatsApp is being used for internal teams to maintain contact with one another while remote working is being adopted by most of our staff around the world.

Woolham: During normal times, Minster Law operates a remote working policy across large parts of our business. In doing so, we have invested in cloud-based telephony & IT, video & call conferencing, data sharing/security and collaboration tools, which means as much as 80% of our workforce can work remotely now to meet the challenges presented by the spread of Covid-19.

Technology to engage and collaborate with our clients and partners is a natural part of our working methodology, so we have simply increased our everyday use of these technologies rather than learning how to work effectively with them.

An RPC spokesperson: We have established and well-tested agile working systems and processes in place to continue to deliver uninterrupted service to our clients. All our people have been equipped with laptops and mobile telephones to support people working from home. In order to minimise face-to-face contact with clients, we have encouraged our people to find appropriate workaround to client meetings, be it via the telephone and video conferencing meetings with clients.

How are you managing your case load and ongoing trials?

Harrington: More of our offices have become either paperless or paper-lite over the last few years and so for many colleagues, it’s been an easy and straightforward transition to working remotely.

Access to 12 of our 13 offices is still available at this moment in time and so there has been no disruption to the way we manage our cases. We are also significantly increasing the scanning of our files across our offices so more of our lawyers can manage their case load electronically. This, combined with other electronic tools we use to interact and collaborate with clients helps us to guarantee that continuity of service.

Spiers: Our systems allow us to monitor and manage each team member’s workload. If a team member is unfit to work we have in place an emergency contact email and number, which are managed by our emergency response team.

We understand currently proofs (trials) in civil cases in Scotland involving witnesses are likely to be suspended until the end of April. Jury trials (both criminal and civil) involving witnesses are likely to be suspended until July. We continue to prepare for all proofs and trials in the normal way.

A Clyde & Co spokesperson: Our priorities are the well-being of our people and provision of service to our clients. We continue to operate as normal in as many regards as possible and have created means to do this using our remote working capabilities. Where trials are taking place we will attend them as normal subject to any other restrictions in place. 

It is vital that dispute resolution mechanisms continue to function through stressful times to provide certainty. We are starting an initiative with other law firms to assist this for example by encouraging virtual forums, video evidence and resolution based on documentary evidence. We encourage others to join us.

Pryce: We’ve always fully supported remote working, and while we’ve never all had to work remotely at the same time, our ability to continue working on cases “as normal” is largely unaffected. We have no trials taking place at the moment but have been asked by an opponent to consider whether it may be possible to make arrangements for a final arbitration hearing taking place via video. We consider that to be much less than ideal and would be more in favour of a postponement if the current arrangements remain in place when the hearing is due to start.

Liversidge: As per normal. All our people globally have remote access to every single application and system as if they were in the office. This includes practice management, case management, dictation, time recording, intranets and knowledge resources etc.

Woolham: At any one time, we manage around 25,000 claims, including people with serious injuries. While always operating within the scope of the latest guidance from government, there is no change in our task, to ensure the continued progression of their claim. We are able to do this because of the major investments we have made in establishing a flexible and connected workforce and operating model.

To an extent, that progress depends on the services and response capability of third party insurers and our wider supply chain partners (medical agencies, rehabilitation, courts, counsel etc). We are in constant contact with all key partners to keep abreast of any shift in their operating models so we can flex our response, depending on the customer impact.

Have you shut any/all of your entire office/s to stress test your resilience and what is the plan moving forward?

Harrington: We have steadily increased remote working for colleagues across our offices to test the resilience of our IT infrastructure. We already have a number of colleagues working from home regularly as we have long had flexible working arrangements. We increased this number over the last few weeks to include those who were in the ‘at risk’ category or needing to self-isolate. From Monday this week all of our London based colleagues will be homeworking as we will closed our London office on Friday 20 March.

Spiers: None of our three offices (Glasgow, Edinburgh and Helensburgh) have been closed – only core staff whose work cannot be done remotely are in the office.

Stress testing of all remote access applications was due to be completed by close of business on 20 March. The functionality of our email and telephony systems has already undergone rigorous testing.

A Clyde & Co spokesperson: This crisis is global in nature, although different continents are at varying stages in their response. We are keeping all of our offices technically open to facilitate service to clients and essential services to the business while adhering to guidance from governments and authorities for remote working where relevant. We are using our global network to adapt how we operate and maintain service levels globally to our clients as they rely on us at this most unprecedented of times.  

Pryce: We’ve said that the default position is that our team should work remotely unless there is a “good reason not to do so”, but our office on Lime Street remains available for any team member who wishes to use it.  At present everyone is working remotely, with the expected minor IT teething issues, but nothing problematic.

Liversidge: Our offices in Asia started working remotely from January, on either a split rota basis or full-time. Because of our resilient IT infrastructure we didn’t anticipate any technical issues working remotely as it’s been in practice for years, so we were very confident in our ability to adapt to the situation.

However, to ensure our partners and staff are well practised we stress-tested our systems and home working capabilities across the majority of Kennedys’ offices globally. Our HR system holds information relating to everyone’s (over 2000 plus people) ability to work from home and we were easily able to gather those statistics for planning purposes. We are very proud of our ability to seamlessly continue to service client work. In response to our seamless transition to remote working for many of our staff, we have received some extremely positive feedback from our clients. We have been praised for ‘really leading the way through this crisis’ and our swift mobilisation of staff has also been complimented – ‘What a response. Top draw. Thank god we have you on board’.

Woolham: We have robustly tested our business continuity plan and infrastructure resilience as well as successfully trialing large-scale remote working across the business. We have now launched our plans to respond to guidance from both the government and Public Health England.

With almost 80% of our colleagues now working remotely, we have put in place new social-distancing policies within our offices to further safeguard colleagues that are simply unable to work remotely.

With these structures now in place, we have no immediate plans to close our offices and continue to service our customers and business partners in the usual manner.

An RPC spokesperson: Since 18 March, the majority of our UK based people have been working from home until further notice. This decision was made following UK government advice and in line with the firm’s existing business continuity plans. In the weeks preceding, we tested our BCPs by partially closing our office and asking our people to work from home. A dedicated internal Covid-19 incident and response team has been put in place and is meeting continuously to assess and make adjustments to our policies as necessary.

Do you think as a business everything will return to normal once the threat of Covid-19 rescinds; or do you see [for now] temporary working practices being introduced in light of coronavirus becoming more permanent fixtures?

Harrington: It is hard to tell right now what ‘normal’ will look like as there remains a great deal of uncertainty about how long the threat of coronavirus may last. However, in terms of working practices, we have made it possible for more colleagues than ever before to work remotely and this could continue in the future.

Spiers: Very difficult to speculate at this time. We have put measures in place to ensure as far as we possibly can that we can provide business as usual and will continue to do so.

This event will change societal behaviours in many ways. Our business generally will return to normal after the event. We anticipate there may be a decrease in personal injury claims next year as a result of reduced industrial activity and use of cars during the event. That will however be balanced by increased contractual and coverage disputes, particularly in construction and supply chains.

Clyde & Co senior partner Peter Hirst: It’s too early to say how quickly the world returns to business as usual. However, as in all crises there will be a significant changes to operating methods as lessons are learned. This may provide a decisive shift towards digital and remote working in the legal sector. Businesses that want to emerge strongly from this crisis are already considering how to adjust their models and we are no different. More broadly, organisations will place even greater emphasis on the resilience of their supply chains. The nature of this crisis has highlighted the need to manage risks and exposures on a truly global basis.

Pryce: We’ve always encouraged our team to work from wherever they feel they would be most productive (while bearing in mind that we need to consider collective productivity, rather than just individual productivity), subject to asking everyone to make sure they’re in the office every Thursday, so that we all see each of our colleagues at least once a week. Once we return to normal our approach as a firm will remain exactly the same, but some of the team who haven’t perhaps embraced remote working as much as others, may find that they’ll begin to take a more flexible approach.

Liversidge: An unprecedented event like this will no doubt have a lasting effect on working practices in that remote working will become far more accepted, if not encouraged. It will also test people’s ability to use different channels of communication for everyday team and client use – such as applications including WhatsApp, Slack, Yammer, MS Teams etc. It will also expose inefficiencies in technical and security set ups and paper-heavy environments, so there is no doubt it will help enforce paperless office environments.

Woolham: Predicting the outcomes or implications of the spread of Covid-19 is difficult and it’s clear that a return to ‘business as usual’ will remain unclear for some time to come.

Businesses need to have plans in place that not only bridge the immediate challenges ahead of us but can also flex and extend should the situation continue to escalate as is predicted. We have assumed that our new way of working will need to be in place for a minimum of three months – but are confident that should the timeframe need to expand we are well positioned to respond.

There remains a multiplicity of issues for businesses to consider as we go forward – some known and some no doubt yet to be uncovered as the situation evolves. At Minster Law, we adopt a pragmatic approach by continually tracking events and advice and ensuring our business can respond accordingly.

Cashflow has very quickly become a burning issue for many businesses which, despite recent funding policy announcements from the government, continues to be top of the agenda for many organisations. As a debt-free and well-capitalised business, we are secure in the knowledge that we have the means to weather the current storm, but how this issue will play out across the wider market remains to be seen.

As a sector, we should not walk past the very real opportunity we have to be more front-footed in minimising the ‘after-effects’ of Covid-19 on both our businesses and our customers in the short, medium and potentially long term.

In times of crisis, we must be constantly challenging ourselves to explore ways of improving collaboration across the supply chain. In doing so, we can better understand our individual and collective challenges and work with greater alignment to make sure we come out the other side of this situation having minimised the impact on our business and customer.

How well positioned we will all be to quickly and smoothly glide out from the impact of this crisis we believe will depend on breaking down some of the traditional barriers and blockers to closer collaboration within the claims industry.

What legal issues relating to insurance have you already identified as likely to emerge in light of Covid-19?

Harrington: There is a lot of pressure on the insurance industry right now and managing that pressure in an increasingly changing landscape is challenging. Insurers will have to deal with a myriad of issues, from travel insurance implications, employment challenges, right through to business interruption.

Covid-19 is causing significant and increasing disruption to businesses with a consequential loss of productivity and revenues. Such business losses are possible from both the direct and indirect effect of the spread of the virus and while it is unlikely that losses directly or indirectly caused by Covid-19 are covered under a standard business interruption cover, the spotlight will no doubt be on insurers and the government to stand behind them.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, has told the House of Commons that retrospectively changing insurance policies could cause insolvency issues for insurance companies and is not the most appropriate course of action. We will need to see how this develops over the coming weeks.

Spiers: In terms of policies, the issue of business interruption coverage. As to employers’ liability and public liability, the extent of the duty of care to be owed to employees and others to minimise their risk of contracting coronavirus.

Hirst: We are supporting insurers across all business lines and on a global basis to deal with this unprecedented situation. It is a truly international endeavour; our clients are co-ordinating their response on a global basis to best protect their positions and we are using the global scale of our network to assist them. To help our clients access the legal advice and support they need, we have set up Covid-19 groups from across the world representing all disciplines and lines of insurance business who are helping to co-ordinate our advice and services. 

As has been widely reported and discussed, the classes of insurance where there is currently the most activity are contingency (events and travel), property BI and marine liability (cruise ships in particular). It can also be reasonably expected that the professional liability and trade credit classes will be impacted in due course, given that history shows that any downturn leads to an increase in claims in this sector.

Pryce: The economic losses already being caused by Covid-19 are likely to be on a scale seldom if ever seen. Most obviously, businesses may turn to event cancellation and BI insurance to claim for immediate losses, but in many cases the policies will not extend to cover, or will exclude losses caused by Covid-19. 

The situation is not helped by the lack of clarity in the Government’s current advice, which cautions individuals against attending events, but falls short of mandating closures or cancellations. Further down the line, we expect to see many disputed claims arising from indirect losses, made under policies such as trade credit and political risk policies.

Woolham: Right now, the insurance sector has a real opportunity to demonstrate its value to customers, in how well it responds to and supports policyholders in times of crisis. There are already signs of a possible storm brewing over the issue of BI cover, which risks reputational damage to the industry, with thousands of businesses facing a very uncertain future and asking: ‘what do I pay my insurance for?’.

Of course, insurers will be facing major operational, resourcing and cost challenges too, but they must keep customers at the forefront of their thinking.

From a claimant perspective, we believe any delays in progressing and settling claims can be avoided if we all approach this with a more collaborative mindset. A willingness to think differently and be ready to adjust the way we work together is critical. If done right, the reputation of the claims industry could be greatly enhanced, with our customers feeling supported in a time of great need.