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Update:-
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WELCOME
Welcome to The Plas Club's beta website (v.0.3r). In accessing and using it, you are bound by the terms of site use. Plas Club membership provides down-to-earth, no-nonsense tools on insurance law and practice for busy PI lawyers -- especially small and medium-sized firms -- including:-
* information and advice hotline: straight talk and plenty of it from genuine insurance experts. No limit on a member firm's access to and use of the hotline. No need to instruct unworldly insurance barristers to reinvent the wheel. No need to acquire any insurance knowledge
* annual conference and periodic workshops: our April 4, 2008 inaugural conference-workshop was rated a complete success by everyone who attended. Firms represented included Boyes Turner, Catherine Higgins Law Firm, Colemans-ctts, EAD, Fentons, Harkin Lloyd, Hillyer Mckeown, Irwin Mitchell, Lamport Bassitt, J.M. Parsons, Percy Hughes & Roberts, and Raleys; ATE insurers 80e and BWise were also there
* assured-insurer database. Ever tried looking for an insurer? Our database already contains around 800 named assureds matched to named insurers, and more data will come in as the Club grows. If we can't help with specific insurers, we can help you look in the right places -- some of which you may not yet have thought of.
As the Club evolves, this site will acquire more functionality. While it is being developed, you are welcome to visit, apply to join the Club, use the chatroom and forums, input data to the databases, and email us your comments and suggestions. No registration or password is required to use this beta version.
NICHE RESOURCE, COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
We think the Plas Club is the only online and interactive resource on insurance law, practice and procedure specifically for personal injury lawyers. The Club is the place to be if you've ever struggled -- especially as a small / medium-sized PI firm -- to:-
* understand insurance law, practice or procedure
* find insurers and brokers -- the broker may be personally liable if you can't find the insurer/insurance!
* decipher and litigate insurance contracts
* ascertain procedural or substantive coverage
* model collectability and collection of insurance assets
* negotiate with insurers
* identify and remedy bad-faith claims handling
* collect payment or contribution from insurers
* use the 1930 Act
* understand ATE/BTE insurance: we'll provide a special section de-complexifying ATE/BTE insurance, helping you navigate, model and choose between -- and enabling you to give star ratings to -- particular ATE/BTE insurers and products.
WHY THE CLUB?
The Plas Club -- run by lawyers for lawyers -- was founded in September 2007 at the National Watersports Centre for Wales, Plas Menai, on a lawyers' day out yachting and powerboating. The Club's founder members felt the need for a ground-breaking, mould-breaking forum, network and information resource on insurance law, practice and procedure for the PI legal community. Members presently include these PI practices (for example):-
* Boyes Turner, Reading (Richard Money-Kyrle)
* Catherine Higgins Law Firm, Liverpool (Catherine Higgins)
* Colemans-ctts, Manchester (Christopher Briggs)
* EAD Solicitors, Liverpool (Paul Currie)
* Harkin Lloyd, Liverpool (Jean Harkin)
* Hillyer Mckeown, Chester (Nigel Tomlinson and Nigel Merrick)
* John Pickering and Partners LLP, Liverpool (Kevin Johnson)
* Lamport Bassitt, Southampton (Peter Hilditch)
* Raleys, Barnsley (Carol Gill)
* barrister Andrew McDonald, Harrington Street Chambers, Liverpool.
THE CLUB'S OBJECT
The Club's object is to dejunk, decode, demystify and elucidate substantive and procedural insurance law, practice and procedure for PI lawyers. The Club is intended to be especially valuable to small PI claimant-side firms unable to compete, on PI-related insurance law and practice issues, against larger firms having substantial in-house insurance law resources, experience and contacts. Helping PI lawyers handle the practical detail of insurance / insurer issues is intended to:-
* claims making: maximise the identification, value and pursuit of valid, sustainable insurance claims against correctly and timeously identified insurers, and ensure that no part of a valid claim goes unnoticed or neglected
* claims handling: by making the insurer's own internal claims-handling process and reasoning thoroughly transparent, minimise insurer resistance to promptly paying 100% of every valid insurance claim
* claims collection: facilitate prompt, cost-effective recovery of 100% of every valid insurance claim.
The Club wants to see every valid claim on every valid insurance contract against every solvent insurer promptly and cost-effectively paid in full without any self-doubt by the PI lawyer and without any claims-handling obstruction by the insurer.
MEASURING SUCCESS AND VALUE-FOR-MONEY
Success for the Club, and value for our members, come from:-
* Plas Club methodology -- straightforward, streamlined and standardised -- for finding, approaching and negotiating with insurers;
* Plas Club-driven transparency and fair dealing by solvent and insolvent insurers and brokers at all stages of all claims, including claims by 1930 Act third-party insurance creditors;
* Plas Club products, quickly, tangibly and practically helping more claimants get more claimium from more insurers than presently -- so more PI solicitors receive a higher return, and a higher rate of return, for their CFA / ATE investment;
* Plas Club leadership, providing unprecedented, concentrated cohesion, coherence and focus, throughout the PI community, on insurance issues.
CLUB PRODUCTS
Check out these members-only Plas Club products. Club products are intended to end, at a stroke, the culture of obfuscation and complexification that keeps claimant-side PI lawyers so much in the dark about insurance. Club products are intended to especially help the CFA claimant-side PI lawyer who may never claim at all, or follow through with a judgment against a perpetrator, because s/he doesn't yet know how to target insurers or unlock a particular insurance product:-
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this website will, over time, provide practical tools unlocking and dejunking insurance law, practice and procedure, helping Plas Club members decipher insurance technicalia that other PI lawyers leave behind.
Plas Club email and phone hotline: Busy Club members want ready, cost-effective, back-office access to discreet, genuinely expert, real-world help on insurance law, practice and procedure. They don't want to wade through an obfuscatory insurance textbook for pompously articulated theory, or pay an ivory-tower barrister to reinvent the wheel. The Plas Club members-only email and phone hotline -- available 24-7-365 -- supplies the answer!
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Plas Club accreditation of insurance capability. Club certificates confirm more than just attendance at Club workshops. They give clients, victim support groups and ATE insurers an assurance that the lawyer is motivated and well informed on key insurance issues.
Plas Club CPD one-day annual conference and award reception: the premier insurance get-together for PI lawyers. Substance and intelligence from both sides, plus awards for insurance-savvy PI lawyers, and an award for the best ATE insurance product! First conference scheduled for April 2009.
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PLAS INSURER DATABASE NEWS!
PLAS CLUB GETS FIRST INSURER DATABASE
Christopher Briggs, of Plas Club member Colemans-ctts, Stretford, Manchester, has very kindly sent the Club an Excel database matching more than 300 named assureds to named insurers.
PLAS CLUB GETS MORE DATA!
Helen Townley, of Percy Hughes & Roberts, Birkenhead, has very kindly sent us an Excel database matching 75 named assureds to named insurers.
PLAS CLUB GETS MORE DATA!
Jenny Wood, of Harkin Lloyd, Liverpool, has very kindly sent us an Excel database matching more than 30 named assureds to named insurers.
PLAS CLUB GETS MORE DATA!
Peter Hilditch, of Lamport Bassitt, Southampton, has very kindly sent us an Excel database matching more than 150 named assureds to named insurers.
PLAS CLUB GETS MORE DATA!
Paul Currie, of EAD Solicitors, Liverpool, has very kindly sent us an Excel database matching around 30 named assureds to named insurers.
The Plas Club's database is freely available to Club members. The Club will maintain and supplement it with data from other members and other sources. The Club is very grateful to everyone who supplies assured-insurer data.
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