Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Friday, November 30, 2007

 

Page 3

 

LACBA to Switch Member Malpractice Insurance Brokers

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

The Los Angeles County Bar Association has announced that it will team with Ahern Insurance Brokerage to offer malpractice insurance coverage to its members after being notified by its current broker, Aon Corporation, that it will no longer work with the association to provide member coverage.

President Gretchen M. Nelson told the association’s Board of Trustees of the decision during its meeting on Tuesday, saying that Aon had decided to end the relationship after one of its major carriers announced it would stop renewing policies effective March 1.

Executive Director Stuart Forsyth joined Nelson in characterizing the switch as a positive change for members, noting that Ahern will provide a wider range of carriers for members.  He said that he expected rates between the two brokers to compare well.

Nelson conceded that Aon’s decision was a “blow” to the association, and said the association will lose some $225,000 per year that it previously received from Aon as a result of the relationship.  But she said that this amount was a decline from previous years when the association had received up to $900,000 from Aon, blaming the fall in revenues on Aon’s poor service of policies in recent years.

In other news, the board voted unanimously to adopt a budget for the association for the year 2008, and Nelson announced that she and attorneys Marc L. Sallus and Marc R. Staenberg had a cordial meeting with the consul general of Pakistan for Los Angeles, Syed Ibne Abbas, on Nov. 20 to request an end to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of emergency rule, the re-imposition of the rule of law, and the release of attorneys and judges who were still confined in jail or under house arrest.

 

Copyright 2007, Metropolitan News Company