The RAG - Editorial

If 2023 was a big year for ARAG, in which we announced our acquisition of DAS UK, 2024 has been the year of making our vision for the company a reality.

The integration of the two businesses has involved a lot of work but I’m very pleased with the progress we have made and the fact that our ATE partners continue to enjoy the same products and service, delivered by the same, familiar faces, whether they were a DAS client or already worked with ARAG.

While much of this has inevitably been uncharted territory, in many ways, the events of 2024 have seemed all too familiar.

The Birth Trauma report, published in May, joined the dots between a succession of scandals that have plagued maternity units up and down the country, over more than two decades. Last month, the Law Society Gazette published my thoughts on the costs and implications for justice in our society.

Another piece published last month also explored the theme of diminishing justice, in a much broader sense. The decline of the UK justice system is undeniable, but I tried to find reasons to be optimistic.

Back in January, the final collapse into administration of claims operator SSB Group Limited (which traded as SSB Law) had echoes of similar failures from the past. The fundamental lesson that ATE insurance should, above all else, protect firms and their clients from the situations many now find themselves in, doesn’t appear to have been learned.

ARAG’s ATE Underwriting Manager, James Morgan has examined the failure and what lessons we can take from the collapse.

On a much more positive note, our ATE Sales Manager Mike Knight has written about the success that ARAG is seeing with partner firms in Scotland where the number and range of cases that we are insuring continues to grow at a pace.

Another perennial issue affecting law firms both north and south of the border is the question of case funding. Exacerbated by delays in the courts, the availability of affordable disbursement funding can limit the cases a firm is able to take on.

It’s a subject that ATE Account Manager Emma Wilson, recently wrote about for Partners in Costs.


Finally, the ARAG team’s hard work has once again been recognised by awards judges, having been shortlisted in both the categories that we entered in the Personal Injury Awards.

We haven’t entered as many awards ceremonies this year, as we focus on the acquisition and integrating the two businesses. But we felt the ATE team’s work on maternity cases with partner firms across the country warranted some recognition, and the judges seem to have agreed.

I’m very pleased that ARAG has been shortlisted for Insurance Provider of the Year for helping to advance these difficult but extremely important cases. The business has also been shortlisted in the Case Funding Provider category, for the extension of our ARAG Advance disbursement funding solution to cases beyond the clinical negligence sector.

We’re already looking forward to the ceremony, in Manchester, at the end of the next month. Maybe we’ll see you there.

Disclaimer - all information in this article was correct at time of publishing.