Solicitors handling legal expenses claims under ‘delegated authority’ for insurer

[Strawberrycocktail]

I wondered if any there are any lawyers or insurance experts on mumsnet who know anything about ‘delegated authority’ in insurance claims handling please? What does it actually mean in practice if a business is appointed under delegated authority for claims management, especially law firms working on legal expenses claims? Does the firm make the decisions for the insurer as though they are the insurer? Do they manage an overall claims budget across all legal expenses clients and decide which claims to put the most effort into and which ones to bin/settle quickly? I am just wondering how it all works and how much autonomy the law firm has in how they deal with a claim?

Is delegated authority similar to outsourcing and does the insurer retain any responsibility for the work done and any duty of care to the customer?

I have had a very bad experience with a law firm who were apparently working under delegated authority for the insurer so I am trying to make sense of their behaviour by finding out what delegated authority actally means!

Yes, they can run the matter how they see fit but still need to obtain instructions from the policyholder re the claim. The claim needs to handled properly and a written internal strategy set to progress the matter. If you are not happy you can complain to the solicitor or the insurer. If you were my client and not happy with my advice to settle I would escalate on your behalf to see whether the insurer would be happy to still run against my advice or whether I could settle. I don’t have to do this. I would do it to avoid a justified complaint and leave you to sort it with your insurer if they agreed with my advice.

Thank you for the insight SunnyWinterDay. You appear to have a good approach. We haven't had a good experience, too awful to mention it all here as it would be too identifying and there are misconduct issues but I won't discuss that here! The insurer and us have both had problems with the solicitor and been substantially disrupted. However, I am considering whether the insurer may ultimately have some responsibility as they chose the solicitor and took steps to try and keep us with them when we tried to change and could hear the warning bells! Hence, I am trying to understand what delegated authority is in practice. I am interested that you say there has to be a written internal strategy. I am certainly not aware they had one for us and it certainly didn't look like they had any strategy!

Insurers have panel contracts. You can change firms as they should have several panel solicitors, or instruct your own. Every file should have an initial review and strategy so the handler knows what they are doing! Have you complained to their supervisor or complaints partner? Are you Claimant or Defendat?

The insurer has ultimately responsibility for anything the solicitor does under a delegated authority agreement.

You can complain to the insurer and Financial ombudsman service if it comes to that.

Complain the the solicitors regulator if it's about the crapness in general.

Thank you for the further comments, especially Slackhead. You do seem to know more than I do! Thank you SunnyWintryDay too. I think the insurer has been slack themselves and too trusting of the firm or maybe the general uselessness of the solicitor was the agreed strategy with the insurer! All the indications are they are insuring both sides and having a useless solicitor who fails to obtain the expert evidence in time, misses other deadlines etc as well as various misconduct helps the other side and weakens our case! We are claimants.

SunnyWintryDay, I also wanted add that it is all very well saying you can change solicitor but it isnt always as simple as that. We have had other panel solicitors decline because they dont have capacity to take it on at an advanced stage or maybe they dont fancy taking something another firm has messed around with. And now insurer is dragging their heels on giving a chosen solicitor the go ahead whilst out deadlines run out. Not because of lack of prospects but because the insurer simply takes a long time to do anything. We had to change because of conduct issues of solicitor.

Stackhead not Slackhead! Sorry, my eyesight is clearly letting me down!