Malpractice insurance covering law firms’ blogs will be available within select parameters, Chubb Insurance says, after earlier reports claimed the company was not interested in extending cover.

The US insurer issued a media release last week in response to a story in Computerworld that said Chubb had refused to extend its cover of a New Jersey law firm to accommodate the firm’s forthcoming blog.

Chubb says it will extend malpractice cover to blogs but will be selective according to the risks involved. “Depending on the way law firms use technology, a blog can create a minimal to significant level of added risk,” Worldwide Lawyers Professional Manager James Rhyner said.

Chubb, which claims to insure 90% of the top 200 US law firms, classifies blogs as information or advisory, and says the latter increases the risk of a malpractice lawsuit against a firm.

“An advisory blog can potentially establish an attorney-client relationship, possibly bypassing such safeguards as determining the suitability of a potential client and checking for possible conflict of interest.”