Professional Indemnity
Professional indemnity (PI) covers financial loss a client suffers because of advice or services you provided, even when the advice was given in good faith. It responds to negligence claims, errors, omissions, and the defence costs that often exceed the settlement itself.
We place PI for professionals across legal, financial, engineering, consulting, medical, and technology services, sized to actual claim exposure, not a one-size-fits-all limit.
Cover
What this typically covers
Civil liability
The client says your work cost them money and they want it back. Advice that turned out wrong, a step missed, a deadline gone by. This is the clause the whole policy is built around.
Negligent acts, errors, or omissions in the course of providing professional services or advice.
Defence costs
Lawyers, from the first letter onwards. Most professional indemnity matters end with nothing paid to the client and still cost a great deal to reach that point, which is why it matters whether these costs come out of your limit or sit on top of it.
Legal costs of investigating and defending a claim, often payable in addition to the limit.
Loss of documents
The client's file is destroyed, lost in a move, or wiped along with the server. This pays to put it back together, and that is mostly people's time.
Cost of reconstructing lost, damaged, or destroyed client documents.
Dishonesty of employees
One of your staff takes a client's money. Some professional bodies require this cover before they will let you practise, which is usually how people discover it exists.
Financial loss to clients caused by fraud or dishonesty of staff, where required by professional bodies.
Libel & slander
You wrote or said something about someone in the course of the work and they say it damaged them. Almost never deliberate, and almost always expensive to argue.
Unintentional defamation arising from professional services.
Retroactive cover
Cover for work you did before this policy started. Claims arrive years after the job, so a policy with no retroactive date protects only what you have done since you bought it.
Claims arising from work done before the current policy began, back to an agreed retroactive date.
Limits
What this will not cover
Claims that were already coming
Anything you knew about, or reasonably should have, before the policy began. It is why a circumstance is notified the day it appears rather than at renewal.
The fee itself
A client unhappy with your work can usually recover their loss, not your invoice. Refunding or rebating your own fee is a commercial decision and it sits outside the policy.
A promise you did not have to make
Guarantees, warranties and penalty clauses agreed in a contract go beyond ordinary professional duty, and insurers exclude the part of the liability that exists only because you signed for it.
Deliberate wrongdoing
Fraud and intentional breaches are not insurable. Defence costs are often advanced while the allegation is unproven, and become repayable once dishonesty is established.
Claim
When you claim
Notify the circumstance, not just the claim
This is claims-made cover, and what fixes a matter to a policy year is the notification. A complaint, a request for the file, a client who mentions they are taking advice: all of it is notifiable, and none of it has to have become a claim yet.
Do not put an apology in writing
Admitting liability or settling without the insurer's consent can prejudice cover. Acknowledge the letter, say nothing about fault, and let the panel attorney answer it.
The defence is most of the claim
Most professional indemnity matters are defended rather than paid, so what decides the cover you are left with is whether defence costs sit inside the limit or outside it. That is worth establishing before you need it.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
The policy that responds is the one in force when the claim is made or the circumstance is notified, not the one in force when you did the work. It is why cover has to continue after the work stops, and why notification timing matters more here than on any other class.
The date your cover reaches back to. Work done before it is not covered, whenever the claim arrives. Changing insurer can reset it, and that is the most expensive detail people miss when they move for a cheaper premium.
For a period, yes. Claims arrive years after the work, and once a claims-made policy lapses there is nothing left to notify them to. Run-off cover keeps it answering after you stop trading.
Both structures exist and the difference is real money. Costs-inclusive means every rand spent defending you reduces what is left to settle with. Establish which one you have before you need to know.