Professional Indemnity Insurance

Whilst indemnity insurance is not required by law, it is a type of insurance that the vast majority of businesses could not do without, particularly when you are giving advice. Just having a claim raised against you, regardless of whether it’s founded or even successful, can be timely and very costly. Our professional indemnity cover provides legal defence costs from the outset. If the claimant is successful and you have given wrongful advice, the policy will pay compensation awarded against you. It’s also true that many professional trade organisations and institutions require you to have minimum levels of indemnity insurance before becoming authorised or a member.

Insurance Brokers and Insurers cannot tell you what levels of cover you require, but we can  provide a variety of options  including a combination of indemnity limits and the first amount of any claim that you will be responsible for i.e. the excess.  It is essentially your responsibility to take out adequate cover, although our advisers can go through your options over the phone and explain how you might want to calculate this cost. Many industry organisations and professional bodies will likely be able to offer you guidance as many will have minimum insurance requirements for authorisation or membership. Remember to review your customers contractual requirements, as these will often specify the limits of indemnity and the number of years they would expect you to arrange cover from the start date of contract

Professionals offering advice or providing professional services from home can still accidentally breach their professional duty of care by giving wrongful advice or making mistakes. Such errors can be costly - particularly when you are found to be at fault.

The answer depends on your business activities. We can readily provide public, products and employers' liability insurance packaged together with professional indemnity insurance in one combined package. In addition to protecting your liabilities, we can also offer business insurances cover for loss or damage to commercial property, buildings, office contents, stock and computer equipment (including loss of data.) and business interruption cover for loss of income.

We can advise you on a variety of liability insurances and will establish your needs. If you have employees, you will need Employer’s liability cover by law. Also if you supply products you’ll have exposure for claims arising out of the supply of faulty products. i.e. products liability. What we can’t tell you is the specific indemnity limit of the sole traders liability insurance you should take out. It’s very unique to your business and may sometimes be influenced by your customers or local councils’/authorities’ requirements.

It’s important that you review the levels that you arrange, as these need to be increased to reflect awards made by courts which tend to increase over time, either due inflation or regulation. It is well worth speaking to local authorities and councils to see if they have any minimum requirements you should adhere to.

When you stop trading or retire, there is still the chance that a claim may arise out of work that you will have completed in the past. Even if unfounded, any claim for breach of professional duty will cost you money to defend. Therefore, it is important that you arrange professional Indemnity cover arising out of past work for a period of time after you have ceased trading. This is known as Professional Indemnity run off cover. Professions such as Chartered Accountants or Surveyors and solicitors are required to arrange this for periods up to 6years after closing down by way of professional bodies and the law society.

Many of our customers are eligible for a discount on their insurance simply by being a member of a professional association or industry body. What’s more, for many of these, we offer dedicated wordings especially tailored to your profession, meeting the standards required by professional bodies. This means you can get specific cover with great discounts! Speak to one of our advisers to find out how much you can save.

If you would prefer to spread the cost of your policy you have the option of setting up a Direct Debit to pay your premium in equal monthly instalments through our preferred provider, Premium Credit Limited (PCL).

If you want to know more about our monthly payment option, please read our dedicated page on Direct Debit.

To understand more about how PCL work together with Towergate, please read our Regulatory Information.