One line on the schedule decides which years of your work are insured.
Professional liability is written claims made, so the policy in force today is the one that answers for a drawing sealed years ago. How far back it reaches is set by the retroactive date, and moving insurers is where that date quietly gets moved too. Nobody notices until a claim about an old project arrives.
Build the practice file The short answerA date on the schedule, usually one line, easy to miss
Whether work done before it is inside the policy or outside it
Changing insurers, a gap in cover, or a new policy written from scratch
What is a retroactive date and why does it matter?
It is the earliest date of work your policy will respond to. Work done before it generally sits outside the policy no matter how long you have been insured or how much you have paid. On a claims-made policy it is the line that decides whether twenty years of past projects are protected or only the last two.
The reason it matters more than the limit is timing. A design claim usually arrives years after the work. The limit decides how much is available. The retroactive date decides whether anything is available at all. A firm can be fully insured today and still have no cover for the building that is about to be argued about.
A claim about work that sits before the retroactive date is not a reduced payment. It is no payment, and the defence is paid by the practice.
Both look like ordinary admin at the time.
The date resets on a new policy
A cheaper quote arrives, the firm moves, and the new insurer writes the policy from inception rather than carrying the old date forward. Everything before the move is now uninsured, and the saving on the premium is a fraction of what was given up.
Cover lapses for a few weeks
A renewal is missed between contracts, or a firm pauses cover during a quiet period. When a policy restarts after a gap, the date usually restarts with it. The gap is short. What it erases is not.
Three minutes with the schedule, once a year.
Find the date and write it down
It sits on the declarations page, often in small type near the policy period. Firms that know their retroactive date without looking are rare. Firms that have never looked are common.
Compare it to when the practice started
If the practice has been going longer than the retroactive date reaches, there is a period of work with nothing behind it. That may be acceptable and it should at least be a decision rather than a discovery.
Ask what happens to it before you move
Whether a new insurer will carry the existing date forward is a question that has an answer before you sign, and no answer at all afterwards. Ask it in the same breath as asking the price.
What design firms ask us about this.
Can a retroactive date be moved back?
Sometimes, and it depends on the insurer and on what the firm can show about its claims history. It is a normal request and it is never automatic. Asking at renewal is easier than asking after something has gone wrong.
We switched insurers last year. How do we tell if the date carried over?
Compare the retroactive date on the current schedule with the one on the old policy. If the current date matches the day the new policy started rather than the older date, it did not carry over. That is worth a call this week rather than at renewal.
Does a higher limit help if the date is wrong?
No. The two answer different questions. A large limit on a policy whose retroactive date starts after the work was done still produces nothing for that claim.
We had a gap of a few weeks between policies. Does that matter?
It can matter a great deal. A restarted policy usually restarts the date, and claims about anything before the gap can fall outside. Say so plainly when you next apply – a disclosed gap is manageable, a discovered one is not.
The firm was incorporated recently but the people have practised for decades. Which date applies?
Usually the entity’s, not the individuals’. This catches partnerships that restructure. If continuity of past work matters, it has to be arranged deliberately when the new entity is insured.
Not the question you had? Build the practice file and set out your own situation in plain words. A licensed broker reads it and replies in writing.
Send us the declarations page. We will find the date.
We will tell you how far back your cover actually reaches, whether it survived your last insurer change, and what it would take to move it. Next business day, and usually the same day.