Why choose Hensure for PI insurance
Personal Service
Our business is not a call centre, but instead provides a personal service and dedicated team to assist with your queries.
Experienced Team
Our team has a wealth of experience and knowledge to help you and your business get the most appropriate cover for your needs.
Online System
Our full 24/7 quote and buy facility allows you to run a personalised quotation, at a time that suits you and your business.
How does professional indemnity insurance for Building Surveyors provide protection?
As a building surveyor, you provide a service that comes with an expectation of a certain level of professionalism and specialist knowledge.
Regardless of how many years’ experience your firm may have, there is always the possibility that you (or one of your team) could make a mistake.
If you are a Chartered Surveyor then you could be involved in a wide variety of fields. All Chartered Surveyors are members of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and must be insured on an approved RICS members Professional Indemnity wording. We have access to underwriters who can insure you on an RICS approved wording.
Our insurers tend to target those firms that do not undertake any residential or commercial surveys and valuations for lending purposes. They can consider such firms, but would need to see a full Chartered Surveyors Proposal form and a supplementary questionnaire giving a breakdown of the Survey and Valuation work before they will offer a quotation.
If you are not a RICS member, then a constructions professionals wording will be more than sufficient, and you should be able to buy a policy through our site, subject to the proposed risk satisfying the underwriting criteria stipulated by the insurers.
The Professional Indemnity market has gone through some quite severe rate increases over the last few years and is in the middle of what is known as a ‘Hard Market’.
A ‘Hard Market’ occurs when prices rise and policy cover starts to be restricted.
The last hard market occurred in 2001, following the September 11th terrorist attacks, coupled with the insolvency of one of the UK’s leading Insurers – Independent Insurance.
A ‘Soft’ market occurs when the supply of underwriting capacity outweighs the demand from customers.
Everything changed post the Grenfell Tragedy with insurers exiting the Professional Indemnity market due to the losses that they were suffering.
As supply of underwriting capacity diminished but the demand for cover was still there, then that has led to dramatic price increases.
The Construction PI Market has been hit the hardest by these increases, but it has had a knock on effect to other professionals who operate in this arena such as Architects/ Engineers/ Surveyors and other construction professionals.
Despite all of these, we feel that our expertise and access to the market should mean that we can still get a decent quotation from the market for you.
For further information on Professional Indemnity insurance for Building Surveyors, why not contact the team today.
Things we look for
- Company Size – the overall size of the firm, based on gross annual income of the company and the number of partners/ directors/ employees.
- Qualifications and Experience – insurers will want to know how many relevant years’ experience that you have in the trade and may want to see relevant CVs.
- Type of Work – insurers will want to know the split of annual income derived from each discipline that the firm is involved in; some areas are considered high risk and some areas are considered low risk from a claims point of view.
- Claims Experience – this information reflects on the type of work carried out by a company. It also reflects the quality of the company’s work, experience, staff & internal risk management.
- Turnover Split by Territory – a large exposure to USA/Canada in particular can be perceived as a problem due to the claims culture in North America and the likely costs involved in defending negligence claims in those countries.
Insurance types
Professional Indemnity
- Professional Indemnity provides cover for claims that arise as a result of the work you have completed or advice you have given.
Public Liability
- Public Liability provides cover should members of the public receive an injury or property damage due to your work. This protects your business should a compensation claim be made, also covering any legal costs that result from this.
Employers’ Liability
- Employers’ Liability provides cover for compensation claims and associated legal costs, arising from employee injury or work-related illness.
Cyber Insurance
- Cyber Insurance provides support in the event of cyber-crime and unintentional data breaches, offering cover against the cost of revenue and fines.
Directors and Officers
- Directors and Officers insurance policies protect you financially against any claims that are made against you personally in your position as a director, partner or officer of your business.
Legal expenses insurance
- If you were involved in a legal battle, knowing that any money you spend on legal bills would be reimbursed could make all the difference. Legal expenses insurance does just that. It ensures that your business remains financially stable after a legal case by helping to compensate the business for incurred costs.
Contact us to find out more about the right cover for your business.
Policy coverage
A typical Professional Indemnity insurance policy for building surveyors will normally cover the following areas:
- Negligent act error or omission
- Unintentional intellectual property rights infringement (other than patents)
- Unintentional breach of confidentiality
- Unintentional defamation
- Fraud & dishonesty
- Loss of third party documents or data
- Computer virus transmission
- Negligence of sub-contractors
- Collateral warranties (limited to 2 assignments)
- Adjudications under the Housing Grants Construction & Regeneration Act
- Irrecoverable fees
- Bodily injury or property damage arising from breach of professional duty
- Defence costs
- Court attendance costs
- Breach of health & safety legislation
Your policy coverage may vary between insurer.
