Insurance Defence Salary

[Ex1L]

Review season is coming up. Let's talk salary! I know us insurance defence people aren't getting the bump that Bay Street received, but let's discuss where everyone is at in terms of salary range.

I understand second year salaries at Bell Temple and McCague Borlack are in the $110,000 range. Wondering what other people can speak to?

[MagnaCarter]

That salary seems on the higher end for the industry, but billable targets are not the same across the board.

[Blurg]

I’m aware from a few firms that typically starting salary is around $90k with $10k bumps yearly. Targets for those firms would be around 1650. 

[Ex1L]

On 3/10/2022 at 2:42 PM, MagnaCarter said:

That salary seems on the higher end for the industry, but billable targets are not the same across the board.

I thought it was high too, but after speaking with some recruiters I understand that the market has changed over the past couple months. It's obviously not the same as big law, but seems like ID is also feeling some market pressure. I was hoping to get some insight from people actually working at these firms though, and not just get my info from recruiters.

[MagnaCarter]

That's interesting. I haven't heard anything about raises from my firm. Did the recruiter mention what the billable targets were for the $110,000 second year associate firms? I don't think the second year associates at my firm are paid $110,000 but our billable target is less than 1650. I'm aware of some insurance defence firms that have a 1700 billable target.

[beyondsection17]

Beard Winter and Bell Temple I believe are in that range. I thought I saw a job ad at McCague recently that suggested the pay was lower than that, but in all honesty I didn't look particularly carefully. I believe in-house ID salaries for juniors were actually growing higher than what you'd make at a standard ID firm for a while (and still are, in a not-insubstantial number of cases) so firms have felt pressure to increase their salaries or offer larger bonuses to keep their associates.

EDIT: For clarity, I work in-house, and not at any of these ID firms.

Edited April 22, 2022 by beyondsection17

[MagnaCarter]

I won't out those firms that I know pay less, but $110K for a second year ID associate seems a lot higher than what I remember.

It'll be interesting to see if ID firms can keep associates because their fixed rates are based on long-term per-negotiated contracts with insurers, who are always looking to give their business to the lowest bidder. Unless partners are willing to significantly eat in to their profits, I can't imagine ID rates going much higher or keeping pace with the market.

Anecdotally, I see Blaney McMurtry has scooped up a lot of juniors in recent years. In-house departments are also hiring a lot of juniors as well. It always looks like Intact is  hiring, which is not surprising because they have the most P&C market share. The average junior associate on the plaintiff side must be making less than their ID counterparts and not getting raises because the overwhelming trend I've seen is juniors heading into ID from plaintiff rather than the other way around.