What is Professional Indemnity Insurance?
Professional Indemnity insurance provides you and your business with protection against claims for civil liability arising from a breach of your professional services, or from the conduct of your professional business.
Unlike a Public Liability policy, which will respond to claims of personal injury & property damage that you may cause and will exclude claims arising from professional services where a fee is charged by you, Professional Indemnity insurance covers claims of pure financial loss as well as personal injury & property damage, arising from your professional services.
Who should consider it?
Those professions requiring Professional Indemnity insurance will provide advice, designs, consultation, training, specifications and the like. Often specialist occupations requiring further study and qualification to undertake. This may include:
- Accountants
- Agronomist and agricultural consultants
- Architecture and engineering consulting professionals
- Building energy consultants
- General insurance agents
- Human Resources professionals
- Interior designer
- Loss assessors or loss adjusters
- Management consultants
- Marketing media and publishing industry
- Real estate agents
- Registered BAS agents and bookkeepers
- Risk management professionals
- Swimming pool inspectors
- Real estate agents
- Training organisations
- Travel agents
- Veterinarians
- Work health and safety consultants
- Human Resources professionals
- Legal professionals
- And many more such professions...
Did you know:
Professional Indemnity insurance is written on a “claims made & notified” basis. This means only
claims made against you and advised to the insurer during the period of insurance, will be considered.
In the event that you sell your business or cease trading, you should consider “run-off” cover to protect
against claims that may arise in the future from the services provided when you were trading.
What can it cover:
The main sections of the policy are as follows:
- Civil liabilities claims – Arising from breach of duty, unintentional defamation, unintentional infringement of intellectual property, loss of or damage to documents.
- Bodily injury and property damage claims – Arising from the professional services covered by the policy.
- Legal costs and expenses – Costs of investigating, attending to court, defending and settling claims.
- Public Relations expenses – Costs of engaging a public relations consultant to protect your reputation.
- Estates and legal representatives – In the event of your death or incapacity, we provide cover for your estate, heirs and legal representatives for claims arising from professional services provided.
What isn’t covered:
Claims arising from events occurring prior to the policy Retroactive Date will not be covered. You should ensure an unlimited retroactive date if possible, or at the least, the date on which you first began to trade.
The policy will also not cover known claims or circumstances. You must notify your insurer prior to expiry, of any incidents you are aware of that have occurred which may lead to a claim. Failure to do so may result in the claim not being covered, especially if you change insurers.
It is often beneficial to remain with the same Professional Indemnity insurer as the policy contains a continuous cover clause whereby the insurer agrees to indemnify you for any claims first made against you and reported to the insurer during the period of insurance arising from matters of which you were aware of prior to the period of insurance, provided that the insurer was your insurer at the time you first became aware of the matter and the insurer continued without interruption to be your Professional Indemnity insurer.
You should review any quote received carefully and consider the policy wording for all policy terms, conditions, exclusions and limitations.
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