Professional indemnity insurance is a special form of business insurance cover you may find to be completely invaluable. It is a good idea if your firm provides professional advice, help and expertise for other businesses. This applies too for individuals providing such a service.

PI insurance is also known as indemnity cover and can protect you should a client believe you have been negligent costing them financially or in time lost.

Do you need indemnity insurance?

A good question but if you offer a professional service which involves advice or handling data or intellectual property that belongs to a client/business then you could benefit from taking out such indemnity insurance cover.

Should you be subject to a claim, without PI insurance cover, then you could find that you have to pay out the sort of amounts of money that could destroy any business in the worst case.

What protection does professional indemnity insurance provide?

Professional indemnity insurance is will cover compensation to a claimant,  including things such as loss of earnings, future loss of earnings and even the cost of repairing any damage caused to personal property such as clothes, laptops, briefcases and documents.

You should look for cover against any potential damages that could be awarded to any claimant, including legal costs which can easily rack up to large amounts of money. You may also need cover for the claimant’s legal costs should you be found to be at fault, again, these can amount to a tidy sum!

Before you do take out professional indemnity insurance cover, make sure that what you were hoping to be covered under the policy is actually included as cover can differ!

Check out all of the terms and conditions thoroughly. Identify any areas where you or your organisation could be especially vulnerable to any claim.

Helpful further information

The actual level of insurance cover that you need will depend on your businesses activities and the potential risk that is attached to them. These can vary widely which is why companies such as us can help with the nitty gritty details.

Small businesses need to consider protecting themselves with this cover, especially young start-up business, with no cash-flow or financial resources to fall back on.

The actual types of risks that your organisation could be exposed to include, but are not just limited to the following:

Intellectual property disputes

Dishonesty

Loss of money

Loss of documents or data

Negligence

Confidentiality breaches

Defamation

Copyright breaches

Loss of documents

Loss of IP rights

Think carefully about your level of acceptable risk before making any quick decisions.