Today I wanted to share an important reminder that too many attorneys learn the hard way: renewal application management matters. In fact, it can make the difference between keeping decades of prior acts coverage… or losing it overnight.

A Real Conversation With a Real Consequence

I recently spoke with an attorney who was considering switching their legal malpractice coverage over to us. They told me they’d had continuous coverage for more than 20 years — never a lapse, never a break.

But when I reviewed their current policy, something immediately stood out:

Their retroactive date was only a couple of years old.

If you’ve carried uninterrupted coverage for two decades, that should never happen. So I asked, “What’s going on with this retro date?”

The answer was painful.

A few years back, their firm submitted their renewal application late. The carrier still issued a quote — but with a new retroactive date. That single change wiped out nearly 20 years of prior acts coverage. One late renewal. One technicality. A massive loss of protection.

Don’t Let This Happen to Your Firm

We’re heading into the busy season — holidays, year-end work, family commitments, and a general whirlwind of “I’ll get to it later.” But your legal malpractice renewal application is not something to push back.

Treat it like you would a statute of limitations.
Put it in your calendaring system.
Enter reminders at 120 days, 90 days, 60 days, and even 30 days before renewal.

Whatever you do, don’t assume you can complete your application on December 30 for a January 1 renewal and expect the carrier to turn it around in time. Most carriers need 20–25 days to properly underwrite your file. You might get lucky once — but luck is not a strategy.

The Stakes Are Too High

Imagine carrying legal malpractice insurance your entire career — 20 or 30 years — only to lose all those prior acts because your renewal was late by a day or two.

It happens.
It’s brutal.
And it’s completely avoidable.

Final Thoughts

If you take nothing else from this story, take this:
Calendar your renewal like a critical deadline.
Protect your prior acts coverage.
Don’t give a carrier any reason to strip away decades of protection simply because paperwork arrived late.