Crawford & Company’s UK law firm, Crawford Legal Services (CLS), is entering a period of accelerated growth with expansion across four locations. Already operating in Liverpool and Manchester with over 40 people, CLS has opened a new office in Leeds and is creating a sizeable presence in the Birmingham office.
With Crawford’s clients looking to consolidate, drive improvement and secure value for money from their supply chain, the Crawford ‘connected claims’ solution offers clients a fully integrated, single supplier service. CLS plays a vital role, engaging alongside Crawford’s claims handlers and adjusters to control claims from the first notification of loss to a conclusion. The result is proactive, seamless claim management from day one with no disconnect, leakage or delay, helping clients reduce claims costs and lifecycles while enhancing customer service.
We are an independent alternative business structure (ABS) and fully integrated and embedded within the heart of Crawford UK. We also seek to closely align with our clients’ in-house teams in a strategic partnership approach, helping them enhance their reputations, retain customers and meet their strategic objectives. This approach is increasingly seen by clients as an enhancement to the more traditional adjuster model and a disruptor to the legal profession, changing both the operating and commercial models for our clients.
The CLS team is growing rapidly as recovery specialists from other high-profile law practices see the compelling attraction of our solution to clients and its positive recovery outcomes. In Leeds, former Plexus partner Sarah Cartwright has joined, together with her team, specializing in insurable risks, subsidence, and recoveries. In Birmingham, we are establishing a leading cross-class recovery and subrogation team including technology and policy indemnity.
As part of the recovery solution, CLS operates a unique ‘agency model’ with hundreds of agency agreements in place for clients.
Operating on a no-win, no-fee basis, CLS maximizes recovery opportunities without cost to the client or the customer and has to date achieved a 92% success rate at trial, with an estimated 20% additional return on average claim value* with an average claim lifecycle of 146 days.
The team also conducts deep-dive reviews to identify historic leakage and missed recovery opportunities over up to six years of claims history. Missed recovery can typically represent up to 15% of a claims book, and CLS has helped clients recover several millions of pounds.
CLS provides clients with a cross-class recovery service across all lines of business, from low value to large complex losses, and will expand its capabilities in numerous specialty lines over the next 12 months.
Crawford also took the step this year to include the counter fraud services team within CLS as we look to enhance our offering with a lawyer-led end-to-end fraud solution.
CLS was formed in 2016 and within three years was awarded Law Firm of the Year at the British Claims Awards and was also nominated for Insurance Law Firm of the Year by Insurance Times. And with exciting growth ahead, 2020 looks set to be CLS's biggest year yet.
*This is based upon our market analysis and performance data.
