5 Reasons Why Insurance Law is an Underrated Practice Area

Of all the areas of legal practice, I’ve always considered insurance law to be an underrated outlier – both in how little is known about it outside of those who practice it, and for the unique career opportunities that it can present.

Almost all of the lawyers that I meet have a similar story about how they came to work in their specialisation. They either gravitated towards the “glamourous” practice areas straight out of law school – usually commercial disputes or M&A – or they ‘fell into’ some area or another.

No one starts out their legal careers committed to practicing insurance. But why not?

Here is a list of reasons why I think insurance lawyers have it better than most:

1. The clients are sophisticated and seasoned litigators: Insurance lawyers are briefed by claims managers within insurance companies. These claims managers are often legally qualified and have a far more commercial outlook than business owner or individual clients, who have a personal stake in the dispute.
2. Work/life balance: Your clients will typically leave the office ‘on time’, so after-hours requests are rare. The face that the majority of specialist insurance teams sit outside of the traditional top-tier firms doesn’t hurt either.
3. Varied work: An insurance practice provides a unique opportunity for career-long exposure to a variety of issues. This holds true even if you choose to specialise in a narrow subcategory of insurance. For example, a specialist Professional Indemnity lawyer may act for professionals as diverse as psychiatrists, company directors and engineers.
4. Pathway to partnership: The allocation of the majority of work by insurers to law firms is determined by panel appointments. This means that insurance lawyers have a steady stream of work from no more than 4-5 clients at a time, giving them the opportunity to develop deep relationships with claims managers from early on in their career. These relationships open up simpler and quicker pathways to partnership.
5. Easy transitions in-house: Closer relationships with clients will always mean more opportunities to join them on the other side. Insurance companies have large claims teams and hire regularly from their panel providers.