Litigation Risk Insurance.
Funding and insurance should be considered together.
For many claimants, litigation funding and litigation risk insurance are complementary parts of the same strategy.
Funding helps claimants meet the cost of pursuing meritorious claims. Insurance can help manage the adverse costs risk, satisfy security for costs or insure judgment and appeal related risks that may arise along the way. Considered together, they can improve the financial structure of a claim and help clients, lawyers and funders understand the true risk-adjusted economics of pursuing it.
In major commercial litigation, collective redress and other high-value disputes, insurance can be relevant not only as a defensive protection, but also as a tool for making a case more financeable. A well-designed insurance strategy may help reduce both downside exposure and own-side costs, improve budget proportionality and give funders greater confidence in the overall claim structure.
How Eralis can help.
Eralis helps clients and their advisers think strategically about the capital structure of litigation. That includes identifying where litigation risk insurance may be relevant as part of the overall funding strategy.
Where insurance may assist, Eralis can help clients access specialist insurance expertise alongside the litigation funding process. This enables clients to explore funding and insurance options in a coordinated way, with insurance considerations addressed alongside the funding strategy, economics and presentation of the claim to potential funders.
This can be particularly useful where a claim may require both external funding and insurance support, or where the availability, pricing or structure of insurance may affect funder appetite.
Why consider insurance early?
Insurance is often most useful when considered early in the funding process.
Early consideration can help:
identify whether insurance may improve the attractiveness of the case to funders, for example by enabling the lawyers to take on more CFA risk;
assess adverse costs, enforcement, appeal or judgment-related risks before terms are finalised;
ensure that funding and insurance structures are designed together rather than sequentially;
avoid late-stage friction if funders require insurance support before committing capital; and
improve the overall presentation of the claim as an investable legal asset.
In some cases, insurance may be central to whether a matter is fundable at all. In others, it may improve pricing by reducing risk, or give clients and funders greater confidence in pursuing the claim.
Relationship with Willis, a WTW business.
In addition to operating as an independent litigation finance advisory and brokerage, Eralis is an Introducer Appointed Representative of Willis, an insurance intermediary authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Willis is part of Willis Towers Watson, a leading global insurance intermediary and risk management consultancy. This relationship enables Eralis to provide clients with access to a regulated insurance intermediary where insurance solutions may be relevant to managing or transferring litigation risk. Through Willis, clients may access transactional and advisory services in relation to litigation risk insurance, where appropriate.
With a client’s consent, Eralis may pass to Willis the client’s name, contact details and factual information relating to potential insurance requirements obtained in the course of Eralis’s litigation finance advisory and brokerage work.
Details of Eralis’s status as an Introducer Appointed Representative are available on the FCA Register here: https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001Sk00000yUTyDIAW.
