Wherever a plaintiff’s case may go, protecting their interests is at the top of the agenda for DAS Canada’s After-The-Event (ATE) insurance.
“We’ve consistently held the protection of the plaintiff as our highest priority, and our policyholder in our insurance products is the plaintiff, not the law firm,” said Dominique Zipper (pictured), ATE manager. “The DAS ATE policy is in place to protect the plaintiff, and the policy actually travels with the plaintiff if they move law firms. The plaintiff is the owner of the insurance policy and the law firm is really the distributor of the insurance.”
There are clear benefits to the law firm, too, since they can rely on the insurance policy to protect them from loss-incurred disbursements. If they lose contact with their client, or they discover through new evidence that their client’s case won’t be successful, DAS will pay for out-of-pocket expenses the firm may have racked up to advance a case that’s not winnable.
If a law firm is interested in offering the insurance policy to its clients, DAS offers a business partnership program, whereby the firm distributes the product to its clients. The ATE solution is most effective when it’s offered to the client upon retainer.
“We would recommend the ATE insurance be offered at the point that the plaintiff hires their lawyer,” explained Zipper. “The reason for this is that litigation that has been ongoing for several years can, depending on the stage of litigation, be rendered uninsurable simply because of the increased risk at a later stage of litigation.”
Without ATE insurance, the plaintiff runs the risk of going to trial and losing, in which case they might owe one or more defendants their costs of having to defend the action.
In a marketplace with options, the DAS product stands out because of its Rule 49 coverage, which protects the plaintiff in the event that they proceed to trial and they fail to beat the defendant’s last formal offer.
“As the first provider into the market, we are uniquely positioned with the expertise and the market data to craft solutions that are tailored to the various legal jurisdictions and law firms that we work with, which is why we are now able to bring out a new suite of products,” said Zipper.
