>>Ultimately it's our money. If we aren't in a position to gainsay them, then who is?
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>>>>I'd be interested in hearing how the insurance settlement amount ultimately comes out of our pockets.
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>>Ah. Then you feel that insurance rates do not go up due to paying out of losses? I take it you feel that insurance companies are organisations that, due to their innate sense of fair play, will not pass on these costs to their customers. I disagree.
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>Nutritionists in the UK may get their premiums bumped up - maybe a lot. But this doesn't necessarily mean your Canadian lawyer's rates will go up as well. Risk management pools are getting finer-grained all the time.

If you go back to my original comment, it was general, not specific to this instance. If insurance companies in Canada find themselves losing money, they will raise rates in any category they can. Yes, they will try to recoup in the specific category, but like any business, they will try to recoup wherever possible.

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>The members in an insurance pool are already paying for an expected level of incompetence and associated claims. A single large claim like this is spectacular but what really matters is the deviation from expectations at the end of the year. If the total claims for that pool are lower than expected, rates may actually go down for pool members in general (although the bad apples will probably see increases, if they can get insurance at all).

That's true as far as it goes, but spread of risk doesn't necessarily mean scoping down to that fine a level if money is being lost regularly. Eventually the company may drop out of the line of business, but they will try to recoup the loss elsewhere if they can. Haven't you ever noticed when catastrophe years happen and property losses from hurricanes, floods etc devastate the property lines, that rates go up in other lines of business too? It's part of the reason why insurance rates are cyclic. In a hard year, rates are generally up in all lines of business. In a soft year, they are down in all lines. Sometimes they drop too low, and the losses start to pile up (usually in the property area), so the rates climb again (in all areas).