Articles From the Team
Insurance market review - 2021
Finally we are nearing the end of 2021. It has been all encompassing for both individuals and firms in the eye of the COVID storm, and it's fair to say we are all looking forward to some down time over the festive season.
On the whole 2021 has been an extremely busy year, in particular for firms in the defendant healthcare and catastrophic injury field.
We have seen a vast majority of teams that we work with across the country grow, particularly at the 0-5 year post qualification level. We have also witnessed a large amount of new teams opening in the market this year, all of which are looking to continue to grow into 2022 at a rapid pace.
The biggest shift since the start of the pandemic has been all law firms switching to a hybrid working model. This has from what we have seen been a huge success and has allowed firms to consider and hire candidates who live further afield, which again has helped the teams to thrive.
Although sometimes challenging for more junior lawyers, most firms now have great procedures and strong technology in place to offer training and support remotely. Defendant teams have also started to open up roles to lawyers from a claimant background across various disciplines, which again is a big change in contrast to pre-Covid, allowing candidate pools to be widened further to meet the demands of the current market.
We have, however, seen a drop off for the teams that focus on RTA and motor fraud work with the new changes. With this we have seen an increase in motor focused firms retraining their staff into new areas - in particular consumer credit and mis-selling. We have also observed some strong recruitment from the likes of Simmons & Simmons, Herbert Smith Freehills and Eversheds in this area.
On the London side there has been an increase in applications from candidates across the UK keen to secure roles in the big city. Now that there is less need to be in the office on a weekly basis it is much more achievable to work in London without the need to relocate permanently.
There are no signs of things slowing down moving into 2022. It's set to be another year of considerable growth, with some excellent opportunities on offer...