Working closely with claimants, law firms and litigation funders, we deliver innovative broking solutions to assist those involved in various types of high value commercial litigation and international arbitration matters.
These include tailored After the Event (ATE) insurance programmes, access to non-recourse funding arrangements from litigation funders and litigation finance facilities for law firms.
ATE insurance is a litigation insurance product that provides protection against the financial exposure of having to pay an opponent’s legal costs if the insured is unsuccessful in their legal proceedings.
Coverage options include to meet either the opponent’s costs only, or the opponent’s costs and an element of the claimant’s own costs, subject to the level and terms of indemnity of the policy. It can include costs incurred before inception of a policy and the amount of cover available ranges from GBP250k up to GBP25m or more.
ATE is usually only available to claimants, however some insurers can provide cover for defendants. It can be purchased before proceedings have been issued or at any time after they have been issued. Purchasing ATE later in proceedings may result in higher premiums and increases the difficulty in finding cover.
Miller can also secure capital protection insurance for single funded cases, shortfall indemnity policies for portfolios of claims and law firm contingency fee cover for solicitors who have their WIP at risk.
ATE mitigates the risk of having to pay an opponent’s legal costs and disbursements if a claim is unsuccessful in exchange for a premium, which can be deferred and contingent upon a successful outcome or staged throughout the litigation cycle.
The existence of an ATE policy provides an incentive for the other side to settle, as they will know the insurer conducted a separate analysis of the merits of the case in addition to the solicitor and counsel and support the claim.
ATE cover means a larger, wealthier defendant cannot simply outspend a claimant to force a settlement. ATE sends the message that the claimant is in the litigation for the duration, having already minimised their litigation costs risk.
In addition to ATE insurance, we can help claimants to obtain non-recourse funding arrangements from litigation funders willing to support them with their legal costs and disbursements.
In the event of successful settlement or award at trial, the litigation funder would be entitled to a proportion of the claimant’s damages or a multiple of their investment. However, should the claim be unsuccessful, the funder would lose their investment. This enables claimants to transfer the financial risk to the funder.
Our ATE offering forms part of Miller’s wider, market-leading proposition to law firms, which includes professional indemnity, cyber, D&O, key person and personal lines insurance for high-net-worth individuals.
