Professional Indemnity Insurance

You should consider taking out professional indemnity insurance if your business offers advice, designs or professional services. This essential business insurance protects you against claims made by a client for any financial losses they suffered as a result of your advice or services.

Our professional indemnity cover also includes cyber liability, providing protection against hacking or data breaches. You can buy tailored professional indemnity quickly and easily from Tapoly.

What is Professional Indemnity insurance?

This type of insurance covers you if it's alleged that you made a mistake in your work. This could be bad advice, inadequate services or poor designs - anything that results in a financial loss for your client. With Professional Indemnity, the cost of your legal defence would be covered, as would any financial compensation for your client.

What does it cover?

Depending on what you do for a living, your needs will vary. Cover can include:

• Negligence or dishonesty - where a client believes you were negligent or dishonest in your work or advice which negatively impacted on your client's business
• Defamation - including libel & slander, where the character of any person or organization has been damaged, including mental anguish or emotional distress
• Intellectual Property Infringement - sometimes referred to as copyright breach, where a claim is made that the work you have produced is similar or based on someone else's work
• Claims expenses - we will cover any legal costs or settlement fees associated with a claim made against you
• Information Security & Privacy Liability - this covers legal issues due to data breaches or hacking, where someone steals or leaks the data you hold about clients

Who needs Professional Indemnity insurance?

If you give advice or provide a professional service to your clients then you should consider this kind of insurance. It could cover any consultancy service where you offer advice, a mistake in a calculation, planning or design carried out by yourselves or if client's data is believed to have been disclosed or there has been an infringement of some kind. Without the right insurance, you would be financially exposed if you made a mistake during the course of your work.

Sometimes a client may insist that you have Professional Indemnity in place before you start a contract with them, and sometimes it is a requirement by a professional body depending on the industry association you may belong to. Professional indemnity is an important cover for the self employed, especially freelancers and contractors who give advice to clients.

What professions do you cover?

We cover a wide range of professions including IT & software development,design, marketing & advertising, management consultants, media, and many more. Our Professional Indemnity is suitable for freelancers, sole traders, contractors, the self-employed, and small businesses.

How much does this insurance cost?

The cost (or "premium") will depend on several factors and is based on the predicted likelihood of a claim being made against you and the potential size of any claim. It considers factors including the type of work you'll be carrying out, the level of cover that you have requested and how long you need cover for.

As a general rule of thumb, the riskier your business the higher your premium will be.

What happens if I don't have Professional Indemnity insurance?

If you don't have this protection then you could be liable for any costs relating to a claim made against you. This could include legal costs and compensation. Even if you are on a short-term contract, you could still have a claim made against you months down the line if something happens which a client believes was down to your negligence or mistake.

What limit of liability should I choose?

There are a number of factors determining the amount of Professional Indemnity cover you might need.

Sometimes your clients will tell you the level of cover that they want you to have in place before you start working with them and ask you to send them a copy of your insurance certificate.

If you haven't been asked specifically then you can select your own level of cover. Take factors like your annual turnover into account and the size of the projects you work on. If something went wrong, what would be the likely cost to put it right? Don't forget to include legal costs when doing your calculations.

We offer up to £2 million of Professional Indemnity cover, though you can choose a lower limit if you don't need that much, so you don't pay for more than you need.

Do I have to pay an excess or deductible?

There is a small excess amount. However, you only have to pay this if a claim against you is successful, so you can call us to discuss any worries or concerns you have about anything related to a potential claim without worrying that we are going to charge you for it. We are here to help.

How long after my policy ends can I make a claim?

Every Professional Indemnity policy from Tapoly has a claims cut-off date clearly labelled in the Schedule document, so you know how long the cover will last. You can extend the claims cut-off date up to a full year after the policy start date.

What's not covered by Professional Indemnity?

The purpose of the insurance is to provide cover for mistakes made, it is not a general business insurance policy. For example, it doesn't cover loss or damage to business equipment - this would be covered by Contents insurance. Nor does it protect employees or clients if they are hurt on your premises - these instances would be covered by Employer's Liability and Public Liability. If you would like more information on what's not included, read our full list of exclusions below.

Exclusions

Tapoly's Professional Indemnity insurance will not make any payment for any claim or loss resulting from:

• Bodily injury and property damage. This exclusion does not apply to any claim resulting from your design, advice or consultancy as part of your professional services.
• Business specific exclusions. Any defect in any telecoms or technology hardware or software which is the sole responsibility of a third party. This exclusion does not apply to any amount you can recover under a written contract with a third party.
• Charge back liability. Any liability incurred by you or your client under a Merchant Services Agreement including any credit card company or bank wholly or partially reversing or preventing a payment transaction, except this exclusion does not apply to PCI Fines and costs extension.
• Contractual liability exclusion. Any contractual liability except to the extent you are liable in the absence of a contract or agreement.
• Defamatory statements. Any statement you knew, or ought reasonably to have known, was defamatory at the time of publication.
• Directors & Officers liability. Any liability or breach of duty or obligation owed by any of your directors, officers, trustees or board members while acting in that capacity. This would be covered by Directors & Officers insurance.