BTE Guidance

The Law Society was disappointed that in Sarwar v Alam (20/LL p100) the Court of Appeal did not accept the Society’s contention that there is a strong public interest in maintaining the client s freedom of choice, which should prevail over any implied requirement to use before-the-event insurance even if held in the claimant’s name, at least unless certain minimum conditions were met. It has not generally been the case hitherto that a method of funding is rendered unreasonable by the fact that individual claimants may have an alternative available. In the view of the Law Society the availability of a BTE policy should be taken into account only in limited circumstances and cannot be regarded as a suitable alternative unless: