Professional indemnity insurance (PII) provides professionals with essential protection against claims for negligence from clients and in many cases is a compulsory requirement of professional bodies. Unfortunately some professionals have been misled into buying inadequate cover by under-qualified brokers or a poor quality online policy, warns Brunel Professional Risks.
“We’ve been worried by the number of professionals coming to us unaware that the PII cover they had bought elsewhere was not fit for purpose,” said Russell Lane, Managing Director, Brunel Professional Risks. “In some cases people have been sold policies which do not reach the minimum standards required by their professional body, and others may be simply ineffective in the event of a claim.”
“Our most recent case was a Legionella Consultancy firm who had been sold a PII policy which contained an exclusion in respect of biological contaminants. 90{0a6a65c996ed4169444354e707b897cdb00dbefc1d0429e8febb9bf11027ba53} of this client’s business was effectively uninsured. As this had not been discussed with the firm, we believe the broker simply had not identified the restriction in the wording.”
“In every case we have been able to provide these professionals with replacement, cost effective cover, providing more complete protection and fulfilling the cover required to enable them to practice. It’s alarming though that some aggregator websites offering PII cover, or general insurance brokers selling PII policies they do not fully understand, can expose their clients to the real risk of being effectively uninsured.”
