Roberts: ABS allows insurer to extend offering

Insurance giant RSA, formerly Royal and Sun Alliance, has entered the legal services market by obtaining a licence for an alternative business structure in partnership with national firm Parabis. RSA Law will go live next month.

A spokeswoman for RSA said this morning: “We can confirm that we have received approval to establish an alternative business structure in partnership with Parabis.

“We are creating RSA Law to support our customers who have a genuine need for a seamless high-quality claims and legal service.”

Tim Roberts, group commercial director of Parabis, said: “This is another exciting development underlining the significant role that insurers are playing in customer-facing legal services provision in this country.

“The ABS allows RSA to extend its service offering to customers allowing them to benefit from our core skills such as business processing and litigation.”

Parabis already has similar ABS joint ventures with Direct Line and Saga.

RSA Law’s head of legal practice is Allison Kemp, a partner at Parabis Law. The head of finance and administration is Peter Roberts, an accountant and senior commercial analyst at Parabis.

The SRA has granted RSA half a number of waivers from the Separate Business Rule.

Among them are that “RSA Law Limited must not represent Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance PLC as being regulated by the SRA or any of its activities as being provided by an individual who is regulated by the SRA”.

RSA Law must also ensure that client information and records are “not disclosed to the Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance without first obtaining client’s informed consent”.

RSA’s ABS licence will go live on 1 April.