Professional indemnity insurance
What is professional indemnity insurance?
Professional indemnity insurance can help protect your business if a client claims there's a problem with the work you’ve done for them. It can cover your costs if you need to pay compensation to correct a mistake or settle a claim, and can also cover your legal defence.
Even though you may strive to deliver an impeccable service, mistakes do happen. A PI insurance policy is designed to protect you against the cost of dealing with a claim from a disgruntled customer. Whether that’s due to a project overrunning or strategic advice that ends up losing a client money, it’s important to ensure you’re covered should an error occur.
For example, you may be faced with paying compensation to a client if they make a claim of:
- negligence – being careless in your work, such as giving bad advice or making a mistake
- infringement of intellectual property rights – for example re-using content from a website without permission
- defamation – making false or damaging claims about a person or organisation
- breach of confidence – sharing confidential or commercially sensitive information without consent.
Find the right professional indemnity insurance policy for your profession to make sure you’re covered against the risks your business is most likely to face.
You may need professional indemnity insurance if you:
- provide expertise, skills or advice to clients
- have access to clients' confidential information
- produce materials that could infringe intellectual property rights
- provide a professional service and could be challenged on your work.
You’re good at what you do and have confidence in the quality of your work. So why do you need professional indemnity insurance? The reality is that any small business providing a professional service that can be challenged is vulnerable to a claim of negligence when the advice or service fails to meet a client’s expectations. From allegations of a breach of copyright to accusations of defamation, these kinds of claims can be costly and disruptive regardless of whether they’re fair or not.