Professional Indemnity Insurance
Professional Indemnity Insurance
Professional Indemnity Insurance is insurance that is specifically designed to protect anyone who provides advice to a third party and in return are paid for that advice. Some insurance policies have been specifically designed for certain occupations in order to ensure that they cover the specific risks and exposures relative to that occupation, including any breaches of specific Acts or Laws governing that occupation. For example:
- Professional Indemnity Insurance for Accountants
- Professional Indemnity Insurance for Tax Agents
- Professional Indemnity Insurance for IT Consultants
- Professional Indemnity Insurance for Management Consultants
- Professional Indemnity Insurance for Recruitment Consultants
The cover provided by a Professional Indemnity Insurance policy will be encompassed within the Insuring Clause contained in the relevant Insurers policy wording. An example of a typical Insuring clause is as follows:
The Insurer agrees to indemnify the Insured against civil liability for compensation arising from any claim first made against the Insured during the period of cover and notified to the Insurer during the period of cover as a result of a breach of professional duty in the conduct of the Insured\’s profession.
Why do you require Professional Indemnity ?
Accountants are constantly doing work for and giving advice to clients, which may include one or more of the following tasks:
- Accounts Preparation, Bookkeeping & Management Accounting
- Taxation
- Audit Publicly Listed Companies
- Audit Financial Institutions
- Audit Not For Profits/Charities
- Audit Private Companies
- Audit Self Managed Super Funds
- Business Valuations
Tax and BAS Agents provide professional advice and can reduce their business risk through Professional Indemnity Insurance.
Professional Indemnity Insurance will generally indemnify the Tax/BAS Agent in the event that a claim is made against them for professional negligence during the period of insurance.
IT Consultants and IT Contractors are generally engaged by third parties to provide one or more of the following services:
- Application Service Provider
- Data Communication Services (ISP)
- Database Programming and Applications
- Data Processing/Warehousing Services
- E-Commerce Application Development
- General IT Consulting
Recruitment Consultants provide placement services for businesses, either in the form of permanent employees and/or temporary staff.
Key Exposures for Recruitment Consultants
- Failure to perform necessary background checks.
- Placing a candidate in a position to which they are not suited or have inadequate experience
- Passing a candidate's CV to an existing employer or to a third party without consent.
- Vicarious Liability arising out actions of on-hired employees
Professional indemnity insurance is required for all practising architects, either as an individual or through an employer's policy. Practising architects can provide their services as sub-contractors to other architects or through licensed corporations. Either way they need to be covered by professional indemnity insurance, either through the policy of the architect that is contracting their services or their own insurance policy.
The general responsibilities and duties of Real Estate Agents include the following:
- Act as an intermediary in negotiations between buyers and sellers, generally representing one or the other.
- Compare a property with similar properties that have recently sold to determine its market price.
- Advise clients on market conditions, prices, mortgages, legal requirements and related matters.
Nurses are professionals trained to care for people suffering from illness, injury, medical conditions or people in need.
- Assisting in first aid and emergency situations.
- Assessment and management of patients.
- Medication administration.
- Observing, taking and recording patient vitals.
- Assisting doctors, other nurses or other health care providers.
- Supervising other nurses.
Psychologists are counsellors who study behaviours. Their work usually involves teaching, research, and conducting clinics.
- Leading individual and group therapy sessions.
- Helping patients to cope with their problems to enable them to become more productive and healthier.
- Improving the psychological health of patients.
- Engaging in research.
- Teaching in universities.
- Designing and implementing behaviour modification programs.
Social workers help people overcome problems in an attempt to improve their lives. and make their lives better. They might work with people who are homeless, sick, or having family problems or they might help students who are having trouble in school.
Key exposures for Social Workers
- Negligence in providing guidance
- Failure to understand and manage basic needs of a client
- Breach of confidentiality
- Misplacement of records
- Failure to instruct clients' families during treatment