Do You Need Professional Indemnity Insurance?

Professional indemnity insurance (also referred to as PII, PI, professional insurance, public liability insurance, PLI and errors and omissions insurance) is crucial cover for any party who supplies advice, guidance or professional services. If you work in any professional industry, from creative companies to firms who handle data, insurance is essential, yet it can be tricky to know whether or not this form of cover is necessary to you.

In this article,
we'll be exploring which industries require professional indemnity insurance and why this type of cover is so important to companies across the UK and worldwide.

Who needs professional indemnity insurance?

If you think you need PI, chances are you're right! Essentially, if you work in a line of business where mistakes or misjudgements in your work could affect a client or third party, professional indemnity insurance is a vital form of cover which could protect you from the little errors that life can sometimes throw your way. If you're still not sure, it may be helpful to ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do you offer your clients advice or guidance?
2. Do you work with data?
3. Do you provide technical solutions or services?
4. Do you offer creative services?
5. Is client confidentiality important in your work?
6. Do you work with important documents vital to clients?

If you have answered 'yes' to any of these questions, taking out professional indemnity insurance is a very smart idea.

Basically, PI insurance provides cover should any accidental miscalculations, mistakes, misjudgements or errors adversely affect your clients. If a client was to take legal action against you in such a situation, public liability insurance would cover the cost of a successful claim, court costs and any other losses to your business.

Which industries need professional indemnity insurance?

As a rule, any 'professional' industry has a need for PI, but this definition isn't particularly clear. To give you some idea of the sorts of areas in which insurance is important, here are a few examples:

• I.T. companies (from programmers to technical support teams)
• Financial companies (from accountants to bankers)
• Creative businesses (from advertising to marketing to photography companies)
• Architects, travel agents, engineer, estate agents...

This list is not exhaustive by any means. If you're at all unsure please consult our quick 'do I need insurance' checklist above or speak with an insurance expert. If you do need insurance, it is important to make sure you address this need. Without the right protection in place you risk your livelihood and your business. So get cover now!