Policy drafting services

We understand that even a small oversight in a policy wording can result in substantial losses for insurers, poor client service and regulatory intervention. Our experienced team drafts policy wordings in all categories of insurance business.

Our policy drafting services provide a cost-effective solution to ensure your policies respond in the way that underwriters intend, while minimising the risk of regulatory intervention. We offer a range of solutions from a simple health check of your existing wording, to fully outsourced endorsement drafting, and can tailor our drafting products to suit your individual needs.

Our experienced drafting team are on hand to help

• Our clients – we act for London market insurers, Lloyd’s syndicates, niche and specialty insurers, MGAs, brokers and broker networks.
• Our team - we specialise in policy construction, drafting and keeping clients abreast of the latest legal and market developments.
• Extensive experience - in the last few years, we have drafted several hundred new policy wordings, ranging from commercial combined policies to complex scheme products. We also advise on legal, regulatory and commercial issues relating to the distribution of your insurance policies.
• Fully flexible service - we provide everything from a simple policy health check and discussions around how to draft a policy document, to a fully project-managed creation of a new product suite, including our outsourced endorsement drafting service.
• Plain English - your policy is an extension of your brand, and with our attention to detail we can tailor policies to your style guidelines and use of language.
• Compliance - we understand the need for your policy wordings, together with your pre-contractual documentation and marketing materials, to comply with stringent regulatory requirements and TCF principles.
• Industry membership – members of Forum of Insurance Lawyers, Lloyd’s Market Association and British Insurance Law Association.

Level 1 – policy update

Our first tier includes all amendments necessary to deal with any specific changes to the law or your risk appetite. This is ideal for insurers who are generally comfortable with their current wordings, but changes are required for a specific legal, regulatory or risk issue.

Our recent experience: we recently c.800 scheme policies for a large company market insurer to incorporate changes to the insurers risk appetite and approach to the Insurance Act. We also reviewed and redrafting over 200 other documents, including Statements of Fact, schedules, precedent policyholder communications, sales scripts and standard policy endorsements. To assist our client with its project management, we put in place dedicated administration support and set up a specific telephone number and email address for this project.

Level 2 – policy health check

Our second tier offers a full legal and compliance review of your wordings. Where a risk is identified we will also provide recommendations for amendment. Level two is ideal for insurers who are either concerned about accuracy in existing wordings or where wordings have been drafted in-house and insurers want cost-effective peace of mind before ‘going live’ with their policies.

Our recent experience: we reviewed a range of bespoke scheme wordings that were drafted in-house, prior to launch. We identified several legal issues and made suggestions on how those issues could be resolved and the wording could be made clearer. As a result of our review, a number of potential gaps in the wording were identified and closed.

Level 3 – full policy drafting services

Our third tier is best suited to insurers who require new wordings and want complete confidence that the wordings meet the desired intention, but do not have the necessary experience, expertise or resources to do the drafting in-house.

Insurance policies will be drafted from the ground up in all classes of insurance business, including bespoke policies or schemes, and policies for niche insureds.

Our recent experience: we drafted over 30 market-leading professional indemnity policies for various emerging professions, including inputting into proposal forms, associated product literature and marketing communications. We worked closely with underwriting managers and claims teams to ensure the wordings provided the specific cover needed for each profession.

Outsourced endorsement drafting services

• provided on a fixed monthly fee or ‘per endorsement’ basis
• fully outsourced endorsement drafting and approval service to ensure the policy meets the precise requirements of the underwriter and protects against unwanted risk
• policy endorsements are drafted to fit your wording within strict SLA deadlines, achieve your underwriters’ intention and fit your existing house style
• highlight any legal or compliance issues in endorsements
• review and maintenance of your endorsement libraries
• provision of management information so you can easily track and identify endorsement trends
• for insurers who would like to guard against the risk of inaccurate endorsements, which can lead to costly and unanticipated outcomes, and minimise the time underwriters are diverted away from underwriting.

Our recent experience: we provide an outsourced endorsement drafting service for a London market insurer. On a delegated authority basis, we draft and sign-off over 1,500 endorsements per year. Endorsements are signed off within tightly agreed SLA deadlines, with over 99.5% compliance. We also log a significant amount of MI, which is reported back to the client in an agreed format and enables the client to identify any trends and make strategic management decisions.

How can Browne Jacobson’s drafting services help?

Whether you’re looking for a simple healthcheck of your existing policy wordings or something more specific, our expert team will be on hand to help.