PROFESSIONAL INDEMNITY: Are You Adequately Insured For A Bad Day At Work? 

The infamous bad day at work. We all have them from time to time. Something outside of work is weighing on our mind ... we get constantly interrupted by people we don’t want to talk to ... the people we do need to talk to aren’t available ...the sandwich shop has sold out of the one thing we wanted ...

And that’s when we make mistakes.

Mostly they’re easily spotted and easily rectified. But not always. Which is why professional indemnity insurance is so important.

But are you adequately insured? Do you have enough professional indemnity?

Well, that depends on the type of mistake you make. Because always remember, it’s not what you would have charged for the work without mistakes that matters. It’s the size of the financial loss the client suffers as a result of the mistake.

For example, a designer or a marketing consultant can’t charge very much for inserting a telephone number in a client’s advertisement. But inserting the wrong telephone number could cost the client a of lot money in lost sales. And that’s what our designer or marketing consultant would be liable for. 

Similarly, an IT contractor wouldn’t be able to bill many hours for simply reading a client’s specification. But if he misses a vital piece of information in that spec and then goes on to design a system that fails to meet the requirements, he’ll be liable not just for a great deal of remedial work but, quite possibly, for an element of the client’s lost productivity.

So the amount of pi insurance you need depends in the type of work you do. Or to put it another way, the size of the financial loss the client might suffer as a result of your action, or inaction, on a bad day.

To determine the level of cover you need, you should think carefully about what you do and the consequences that could follow. You might also want to do some research into how much indemnity insurance others in your industry typically hold.

Or you might want to talk to some professional indemnity insurance experts. Which you can do by calling 0333 3211 403 or email info@freelanceinsure.co.uk.