Tuesday 15 June 2010

Professional Indemnity Insurance Explained

Professional Indemnity Insurance provides essential financial protection for a wide range of professional advisers including accountants, engineers and computer consultants. In the event that a client suffers financial loss as a result of alleged neglect, error or omission professional indemnity insurance will meet the cost of defending claims and any damages payable.
Any person who gives advice, designs, or offers similar services in a professional capacity is seen by clients as an expert. In these times of high consumer awareness, clients will not hesitate to pursue a claim if they feel that they have received sub-standard service. The need for professional indemnity insurance has never been greater.
While some professional people see professional indemnity insurance as an expensive and unnecessary overhead, we know from experience that any professional can produce substantial claims. Court awards have risen sharply in recent years. Without insurance, the financial security of a business is threatened. The following examples highlight the importance of professional indemnity insurance:
  • A business wished to be known by a particular trade name. After consulting with company registration agents, it was told that there was no objection to its chosen name. Proceedings were issued by a company with a similar name and £20,000 was paid in connection by the agents.
  • Detailers prepared structural drawings for the erection of steelwork. It was subsequently alleged that the drawings contained errors and £110,000 was claimed for the costs of alteration and the resulting delays in construction.
  • An auctioneer sold property at auction over a number of years. It was alleged that the property was stolen and a claim for £250,000 was brought for conversion.
  • It was alleged that consulting engineers were negligent in their design of waste heating boilers. A claim for £4m was brought for the cost of extra work and the resulting delays.
  • An estate agent missed the opportunity to carry out a rent review because of a defective rent review notice. The claim was settled for £50,000.
We are happy to provide professional indemnity insurance quotes for the UK or anywhere else in the world. So please visit our website for an instant Professional Indemnity Insurance online quote and be on cover in a matter of minutes.

Monday 14 June 2010

Surveyors Professional Indemnity Insurance

There are many different classification of surveyors such as; arbitration surveyors, expert witness surveyors, general practice surveyors, project manager surveyors, quantity surveyors, building surveyors, structural surveyors, rating surveyors many of whom will be regulated by RICS, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and must therefore comply with their regulator in respect of Professional Indemnity Insurance requirements.

The idea of the cover is to protect that particular business against possible claims brought by the surveyors clients, the regulators may argue it is also to protect the consumers. Clearly the insurance policy its self is designed to protect the surveyors themselves not the client. Of course the theory would be that in the event that the surveyor was indeed at fault with regards to the advice and services provided to their client, the end result may well be that the Professional Indemnity Insurance policy would provide compensation via the surveyors insurer to the client. That said it may well be that the surveyors services were correct and the surveyor was not in anyway at fault, how would the surveyor defend an allegation without the projection of costs occurred by legal representation?

Some companies and sole traders may feel that the cost of obtaining a PII policy is unnecessary, but given the growing number of claims against surveyors in recent years your would have to be very brave indeed (even if you have no regulator requirements to obtain Professional Indemnity Insurance) not to do so.

Hopefully we can help with the costs of your PII Professional Indemnity as a specialist broker we have negotiated with some of the top and best providers of these policies and have made it easy to obtain terms by going online via our websites, where after a few questions we can supply a variation of comparison quotes at competitive rates, which if you find acceptable you can then purchase directly online with a Professional Indemnity Insurance policy and cover being sent to your computer within minutes, go to www.professionalinsuranceagents.co.uk