Legal expenses insurance: origins and development
Legal expenses insurance: origins and development
From protection for motorists to access to law
by Carlo Isola (Secretary General RIAD 1972-1993)
Legal expenses insurance (lei) has always been a special and particular branch of the insurance industry. Up until the Second World War, it developed slowly, keeping pace with the demands of society. Then, however, in certain countries at least, it experienced a period of spectacular growth. Lei is distinguished from other branches of insurance mainly by the fact that it covers not only a financial benefit but also the provision of services. It has been a long and arduous task to put this notion across to the public, to gain the acceptance of the traditional insurers and to obtain recognition from the legal profession and the judicial authorities.
It goes without saying that the environment in which lei developed has varied from country to country. Accordingly, different systems have evolved for the practice of this branch. Moreover, the process of regulation at the level of the European Community has also been long and difficult. From the time of the adoption of the first directive on damage insurance in 1973, RIAD, the international lei association established a few years earlier, has devoted itself to the defence of this specialised branch of insurance. It remained the interlocutor of the authorities in Brussels throughout the preparatory works on the lei directive that finally emerged in 1987.
Since the adoption of the directive and its transposition into the domestic laws of the Member States, many things have changed. Today, lei is not only acknowledged but has become well known, even if, by its very nature, it will never generate revenues comparable to those of the major branches of the insurance industry. If the new generation of executives and practitioners of the lei insurers are to practice this business properly, they need not only to be imbued with this indispensable spirit of wishing to render a service but also to know the history and evolution of lei.
After having been one of the initiators of the First International Meeting of Legal Defence Insurers held in Rome in 1969, Carlo Isola was the secretary general of RIAD up until 1993 and subsequently its vice-president. In short, he was at the head of the organisation throughout the period during which the directive was being prepared. Already a specialist, having practised in the field since 1955, he was to become, beyond any doubt, one of the greatest and most perceptive experts of lei in all its aspects, its specificities, its problems and its history.
(Abstract of Max Plattner's foreword of "Legal Expenses Insurance: origins and development" by Carlo Isola).