Your policy has a definition of professional in it. Your work has to fit inside it.
Consultants, IT firms, bookkeepers, marketers, recruiters, project managers and trainers all buy errors and omissions cover. What each of them is actually insured for is set by one paragraph in the policy that describes the services being covered, and work outside that paragraph is not covered at all.
Build the firm file Read the short answer firstThe policy says what your work is.
Services grow faster than policies do.
Describe what you actually do now.
What counts as a professional service for E&O?
Whatever your policy says counts, and no more. The Insurance Bureau of Canada warns about exactly this: “definitions of professional can vary”. The wording in your own document is what decides a claim, not the job title on your website.
Errors and omissions answers for claims arising from professional negligence, which the Bureau describes as things like giving a client advice that is inaccurate or incomplete and the client’s business suffering for it. The trap is not that the cover is narrow. It is that the description of your services was written on the day you first bought it, and your firm has changed since.
Almost nobody rereads the services description at renewal. A bookkeeping firm starts advising on systems. An IT firm starts writing software instead of installing it. A marketing agency starts handling client money for ad spend. A consultancy takes its first project management role. Each of those is a real change to what is being insured, and each is easy to mention in a sentence at renewal. Read the Insurance Bureau of Canada on professional liability (opens in a new tab).
Four ways a firm grows out of its own policy.
The service that was added
A new line of work that clients now pay for. If it is not in the description, it is not in the cover, however small a part of the business it is.
The advice that became design
Recommending a system is one activity. Specifying, building or configuring it is another. The step from advising to doing is the one insurers care about most.
The work done outside BC
A client in another province or across the border changes where a claim can be brought. Territory and jurisdiction are separate terms, and both are in the policy.
The subcontractor you used
Work delivered under your name is usually your responsibility to the client. Whether their mistake is covered under your policy is a question worth asking before the project, not after.
Three firms, three quiet expansions.
The bookkeeper who advised
Books for years, then a client asked which system to move to. The recommendation went badly and the claim was about advice, which was not what the policy described.
The agency holding the budget
Media spend started running through the agency’s account. That is handling client funds, and it sits in a different part of the insurance conversation entirely.
The consultant who took the site
Advisory work turned into managing the project on the ground. The role changed, the exposure changed, and the policy still described a consultant who only gave opinions.
The questions firms ask at renewal.
My work is broad. Can the description be broad too?
Up to a point, and broad wording is worth asking for. What matters is that it is accurate. A description written to sound impressive rather than to be true is the one that fails at claim time.
We added a service last year. Is it too late to say?
Say it now rather than later. Telling us today is a renewal conversation. Telling us during a claim is a much harder one.
Do I need E&O if I already have general liability?
They answer different things. General liability is written for injury and property damage. Errors and omissions is written for the financial loss a client suffers because of your work.
My client contract says I must carry it. Does that change anything?
It changes the limit and sometimes the wording. Send us the clause and we will match the policy to what the contract demands rather than guessing at it.
What if I stop trading?
Claims can arrive after the work ends, so the cover usually has to continue after the firm does. Ask about run-off before you close, not afterwards.
Two that sit next to this on the same site: what errors and omissions covers, and what happens when a practice closes.
Not the question you had? Describe what your firm does and a licensed person will answer it. Use the short contact form.
Describe the firm you are now, not the one you insured.
It takes one paragraph at renewal to keep the cover matched to the work. It takes a lot longer to argue about it later.