Professional indemnity insurance
Discussion
Salted_Peanut said:
Talk to me about professional indemnity insurance. Which insurers (as a contractor) would be worth considering? And what is there to know about it?
As a contractor, your client will probably stipulate limits required. I've bought through https://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/ before but have never needed to claim, so cannot comment on that.
Talk to me about how to decide on the level of insurance cover.
sideways sid said:
As a contractor, your client will probably stipulate limits required.
This insurance wasn't stipulated by my last client, but my next client requires it. However, the client hasn't given any guidance on the level of cover. I've been looking at the sites recommended here but can't fathom how much cover is sensible. How do you decide between insurance up to £50k versus £1m?!sideways sid said:
Salted_Peanut said:
Talk to me about professional indemnity insurance. Which insurers (as a contractor) would be worth considering? And what is there to know about it?
As a contractor, your client will probably stipulate limits required. I've bought through https://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/ before but have never needed to claim, so cannot comment on that.
I used to use https://www.qdoscontractor.com/. Reasonable price but fortunately never had to test their service
Salted_Peanut said:
Talk to me about how to decide on the level of insurance cover.
What do you do, what size is your business (turnover), and who / how big are your clients and contracts? sideways sid said:
As a contractor, your client will probably stipulate limits required.
This insurance wasn't stipulated by my last client, but my next client requires it. However, the client hasn't given any guidance on the level of cover. I've been looking at the sites recommended here but can't fathom how much cover is sensible. How do you decide between insurance up to £50k versus £1m?!Those questions generally give an idea of what could go wrong to cause a claim, and how big it might be if something does go awry.
Professional indemnity insurance is designed to pay for your legal costs and any damages in the event a third party loses money after you have been negligent in the course of your work - but 'negligent' can be a very wide definition. Said legal costs can really rack up if someone does accuse you of doing something wrong (quite quickly into six figures) and depending on the scope of your contract or services, damages can obviously be a big bill too - e.g. if you've missed something critical that has cost your client that £Xmillion contract.
I'm a Professional Indemnity broker. Not trying to steal InsuranceJon's thunder - he'll do a great job if you're in touch with him - but feel free to PM me too if you want any more specific guidance.
In the early days I did a bit of research into whether professional indemnity insurance had ever paid out in my niche industry. Couldn’t find a single legal case where it proved useful.
I check again most years. Yet it’s on the lost of requirements for tenders.
I’m sure it is useful in some industry’s. But for some it’s a total scam.
I check again most years. Yet it’s on the lost of requirements for tenders.
I’m sure it is useful in some industry’s. But for some it’s a total scam.
LimJim said:
In the early days I did a bit of research into whether professional indemnity insurance had ever paid out in my niche industry. Couldn’t find a single legal case where it proved useful.
I check again most years. Yet it’s on the lost of requirements for tenders.
I’m sure it is useful in some industry’s. But for some it’s a total scam.
Maybe they don't pay out as they are successful at defending the claim.I check again most years. Yet it’s on the lost of requirements for tenders.
I’m sure it is useful in some industry’s. But for some it’s a total scam.
Which they will do at their cost, not yours.
Insurancejon said:
What do you do?
Can't really say, unfortunately. It is very niche, to the extent, I had a bit of a battle on the phone to a speciliast broker, to even get a quote, so it's not like I'm being duped or anything. But clients require it.But I want to withdraw the comment. Both content and tone. I'm not qualified to judge, so it was a pointless comment to make, really. Apologies for the derail.
Edited by LimJim on Monday 28th December 20:30
Having been shafted by Simply Business this year, I would recommend against going with them.
They claim to be experts, are generally the top of every search for professional insurance but having experienced it first hand this, they do not have a clue what they're doing. They managed to royally f*** up, miscommunicated some basic information which resulted in our policy being cancelled by the underwriter with absolutely no opportunity to discuss / query / conrest. I made repeated attempts to talk to the 'experts' and explain the situation but it was like talking to absolute morons, or people who just didn't understand my industry. Given they claim to be experts in this field, it was extremely disappointing.
This understandably put us in a very difficult situation and caused issues with taking out more cover as we had to declare that our policy had been cancelled. When we explained to the new brokers / underwriters the reason for the cancellation, most understood and didn't seem surprised, suggesting that we arent the first to experience something like this with SB. We didn't have any issues up until this point, but it was enough to make me report them to every insurance regulator I could find for the stress, anxiety and grief it caused me.
Ended up going with a small private broker who was superb and dealt with us personally, listening to everything we had to say, sorting us our with everything we needed. We even extended cover to include directors and officers cover, PL and a few other bits, as we were so pleased with the service.
Happy to recommend them if not already sorted. Just wanted to throw in my 2p regarding SB.
They claim to be experts, are generally the top of every search for professional insurance but having experienced it first hand this, they do not have a clue what they're doing. They managed to royally f*** up, miscommunicated some basic information which resulted in our policy being cancelled by the underwriter with absolutely no opportunity to discuss / query / conrest. I made repeated attempts to talk to the 'experts' and explain the situation but it was like talking to absolute morons, or people who just didn't understand my industry. Given they claim to be experts in this field, it was extremely disappointing.
This understandably put us in a very difficult situation and caused issues with taking out more cover as we had to declare that our policy had been cancelled. When we explained to the new brokers / underwriters the reason for the cancellation, most understood and didn't seem surprised, suggesting that we arent the first to experience something like this with SB. We didn't have any issues up until this point, but it was enough to make me report them to every insurance regulator I could find for the stress, anxiety and grief it caused me.
Ended up going with a small private broker who was superb and dealt with us personally, listening to everything we had to say, sorting us our with everything we needed. We even extended cover to include directors and officers cover, PL and a few other bits, as we were so pleased with the service.
Happy to recommend them if not already sorted. Just wanted to throw in my 2p regarding SB.
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