Claiming against professional insurance

Does any subscriber to survivefrance have any experience of making a claim against professional liability insurance?

Below I describe my particular circumstances to provide a specific context but I feel that the general circumstances of making a claim against professional insurance is a question of public interest. (It is of interest both to customers and to the professional paying the premiums).

I instructed an avocat to recover a house deposit retained by the vendor,s notaire. (Both the notaire instructed by myself and the notaire instructed by the vendor agreed that I was legally entitled to withdraw from purchase of the property and that if I withdrew I was entitled to the full return of the deposit paid at a meeting in “my” notaire’s office ) The vendor’s notaire has not returned the deposit. I wrote to the president of the regional notaire council who never replied! I instructed an avocat to act.The avocat was placed in “liquidation judicaire” in January 2018. In late December 2017 the avocat sent me a bill for “additional” work required before the judge published their decision (expected towards the end of 2018) that was paid.
" I" discovered the bankruptcy some three months later!
The avocat “postulant” is continuing the case: he has expressed that my case is strong, his fee is almost half as much again!
I have written to the battonier of the “barreau” of which the bankrupt avocat was a member asking how i make a claim against the bankrupt avocat’s professional insurance for the bill paid in January 2018 and the fees of the “postulant” who is progressing the case. The battonier has not replied.
I am expecting that the notaire’s professional insurance will meet the monies awarded by the court and have “shared” this with the avocats on a number of occasions. Neither the bankrupt avocat nor the current acting avocat have confirmed or refuted that the notaire’s professional insurance would pay.
I assume the bankrupt avocat had other clients. There are other professions that are legally required to have professional insurance e.g. “building assurance decannale”.

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Goodness me, John… what a tale of woe… I hope someone has the definitive answer…

Honestly, if it were me, I would hotfoot to speak with the Secretaire at my local Mairie… and before anyone groans, the Mairie is one place where we should be able to be directed to the correct place in times of trouble (if the Secretaire cannot help).

Failing the Mairie, or if you really don’t want to go there, I would go to the Prefecture and speak with someone there… they should also be able to give decent information…

Be armed with as much paperwork as you can…

Good luck.

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