A leading professional indemnity insurer has revealed that it is offering lower premiums to conveyancing firms on condition they use a specific system for verifying client identities. The offer, from Inperio, is an example of a trend observed by a regular survey of small firms published last week. 

The system is a client-onboarding platform from specialist startup Thirdfort. The company claims that its product is the first to comply fully with HM Land Registry’s new digital ID standard. This involves checks on government databases as well as a ‘liveness’ test carried out with a mobile phone and is designed to combat property fraud.  

Inperio director Simon Lovat declined to put a figure on the discount for the technology’s use, but said firms would be offered two premium figures: one with the system and one without. Under its deal with Thirdfort, Inperio receives anonymised data to check the system is used. Policyholders claiming lower premiums without using the system will be billed for the difference in premiums at the end of the year, Lovat said.

He hinted that the company is looking at other ways in which technology could cut risk.  

A survey of small firms by legal publisher LexisNexis last week found the rising cost of PII to be a major concern, with two-thirds of respondents citing it as the biggest threat to their business.