Insurance

Weightmans are a leading provider of legal services to the insurance sector, managing every type of insurance and reinsurance claim for numerous ‘household name’ providers. Our clients include leading composite insurers, specialist insurers and brokers as well as large corporates and self-insured organisations.

Our excellent understanding of how insurance businesses work means that, alongside our claims handling services, we are also perfectly placed to provide employment law advice and support to the insurance sector.

We appreciate that work in the competitive insurance sector can be fast-paced and demanding, with employers relying on staff to work efficiently to meet challenging targets. We know that proactive performance management, and prompt intervention when issues arise, are crucial to the smooth running of any insurance business, and will support you to maintain the highest standards.

Our HR Rely advisors understand that protecting your organisation’s commercially sensitive information is paramount and will ensure that your employment contracts offer robust protection against potential loss of business and staff, especially when key post-holders leave.

Our advice is always pragmatic and tailored to your organisation’s appetite for risk. If you need to move quickly to resolve a personnel issue, we will facilitate a swift solution, rather than getting bogged down ‘process’.

Our team

Our HR Rely team includes advisors who have a special interest and particular skill in advising insurance businesses. We talk your language, have insight into common issues facing similar employers, and expertly tailor our advice to your particular circumstances and priorities. Our employment advisors can also call on the full breadth of Weightmans expertise in all aspects of insurance claims management to provide a seamless service.

Our service

We deliver a high-quality personal service to your managers and HR professionals, ensuring we give practically focused, strategic advice. This can include advice on managing relationships with unions and handling your public communications.

Your Client Relationship Owner (CRO) will ensure total continuity of service. They will work to understand your key strategic aims, and tailor our approach to meet your needs. Your CRO will focus on supporting your business to achieve your objectives within costs agreed with you.

Our HR Rely team is flexible, available and supports our clients to address their issues confidently and quickly. Our service is demand-led to meet significant peaks and troughs of activity.

Helpline

We operate a dedicated HR helpline service to answer any day-to-day queries that arise. We find that the majority of issues fall with the scope of the retainer and that our early advice helps to mitigate against bigger issues down the line. Our advisers will act as a ‘sounding-board’ to your in-house HR specialists, to confirm that your business is on the right track, or to provide a crucial steer when needed.

You can choose whether you want your HR team to liaise with us every time, or whether you would prefer to free-up valuable HR time by asking us to support your managers directly. Either way, our advisors will be on the lookout for any recurring issues and provide upskilling tips to help you grow.

Employment tribunals

Whilst we work with you closely to avoid employment tribunal claims, they will inevitably, occasionally arise. You can be assured that, at the outset of each case, we will review the claim and advise on the legal issues and the relevant evidence that needs to be collated, as well as identifying the witnesses. As early as is reasonably practicable, we provide an initial assessment of the merits and potential quantum of compensation as well as giving advice about other relevant factors such as potential reputational damage, policy, and strategic implications.

Recent work in insurance

• Design and review of employment policies, procedures, and contracts.
• Advising on post-employment restrictive covenants and non-compete clauses.
• Settlement agreements and negotiated exits, including for highly paid and business-critical members of staff.
• Claims arising from workplace stress and ‘over-work’ (including constructive dismissal and personal injury).
• Managing long-term employee sickness absence and supporting return to work and reasonable adjustments.

Our three-tier menu offering enables you to choose the right support package that works for best for your business. Your CRO will be able to help guide you through the process.