Valued Policyholders,

Despite the chaotic equity markets in 2022 and inflationary challenges, we are pleased to report that we enjoyed a strong financial year, further enhancing our already strong capital position, and again declaring a policyholder dividend of approximately $1million. By the end of 2023, we will have returned nearly $12.3million to policyholders in the form of dividends since 2011. One of our continuing goals is to return as much capital via policyholder dividends as is financially prudent. Being able to participate in dividends is one of the major benefits of being insured with a mutual company. The capital strength of your professional liability insurance carrier and its policyholder dividend history are incredibly important, especially during times of economic uncertainty like those we now face.

Rather than going into more detail on our financials, which you will find later in this report, I’d like to update you on the efforts we’ve undertaken to add policyholder value. (Adding value is also an ongoing goal.) Beginning August of 2022, we partnered with Erik Mazzone, founding Director of the Center for Practice Management at the North Carolina Bar Association, to bolster our law practice management resources and capabilities. In addition to the foregoing, Erik offers three hours of law practice management consulting at no charge to our insureds. We also began building an on-demand continuing legal education library that will soon be available to insureds – probably before you read this letter. At the time of writing, there are 13 programs in the library, mostly covering real estate practice and cybersecurity issues. New content covering other practice areas and risk and law practice management will be added on an ongoing basis.

Finally, we’ve been developing an insured portal and mobile application to provide you with easy access to quotes, invoices, payments, policy information and documents, and the ability to request policy changes. We sincerely hope that you find value in these additional services and offerings. Of course, we always appreciate your suggestions, whether on additional products or services or things we can do better or differently.

On behalf of everyone at Lawyers Mutual, we offer our sincere appreciation for your continuing loyalty, support, and trust. Thank you for your business.

Dan Zureich