Professional Liability
Proclaim manages some of Australia’s largest and most complex Directors and Officers liability claims. We also have handled large portfolios of complex professional indemnity claims for a wide variety of professions, from real estate and accountants through to hospitals and nursing homes. The skills we have in personal injury claims can combine with our professional indemnity expertise to provide you with superior solutions in medical claims (see medical malpractice).
We are equally adept at creating superior solutions for scheme business where our proactive claim management across a number of smaller scale claims can enhance the approach to risk situations and reduce costs, be they real estate agents, accountants or health related areas. We pride ourselves on using our expertise to find creative solutions that deliver superior results.
Case Studies
- A former client of an insured accountant sent a letter of demand through their solicitors seeking damages in the amount of $3.5M. The client alleged that insured erronerously prepared tax returns on the basis that the claimant was a resident for tax purposes. The claim was initially investigated in house by Proclaim where we sought detailed particulars from the claimant asking that they substantiate/prove their loss. It was soon discovered that the claimant did not have a case. Proclaim then referred this matter to the insurers legal panel with narrow instructions to write a firm letter of denial based on the fact that the claimant could not substantiate or provide particulars of their loss. The claimant was not able to respond adequately and the claim was successfully resisted with very minimal costs incurred.
- Insured Finance Broker
Proceedings were issued against the insured finance broker and its employee. The insured was retained by the plaintiffs to source borrowers for and provide lending services to the plaintiff. The plaintiff alleged false, misleading and deceptive conduct on the part of the Insured claiming that it breached the Agreement and their duty of care in that it did not obtain a high quality commercial lending opportunity for the plaintiff and as a result, the plaintiff suffered a loss. The claim has been quantified at $200K plus interest of $41K plus costs.
The insured went into liquidation and the insured’s director was not able to be located leaving the now ex employee to provide instructions in relation to the defence of the claim. The ex employee had a very limited recollection of the events. It was soon determined that the insured had significant exposure in this matter leaving us to fast track settlement which was effected within 2 months of appointing legal advisers. - Insured Real Estate Agent
A vendor of a substantial parcel of development land sued the insured for approximately $2M alleging the insured ‘undersold’ the property. The vendor was the subject of a claim for specific performance of the sale contract by the developer purchaser.
A settlement was achieved in which the insured agreed to forego its sales commission but otherwise on a walk away basis. This was a significant result in a claim which had considerable potential particularly if the vendor’s valuer was accepted by the court
Drew Fenton, Coverholder, CPA Scheme: “We have been working successfully with Proclaim and the CPA for over two years now. We like their model of proactive and consultative claim management, and recognize they have the depth of technical expertise and commercial nous to really add value to our program. The results are outstanding, they recognize when to quickly resolve things and when further investigation and support is required. They also provide an outstanding help desk service to accountants to help them risk manage potential exposures. All in all, it assists us in our relationship with CPA and saves our underwriter money”.