Insurance for architects, engineers and design consultants.
We run a dedicated program for design professionals, which means we can go straight to insurers who already know this class instead of shopping your file around. No discipline is excluded. Structural, geotechnical, civil, mechanical, environmental, bring us the work you actually do.
Build the practice file Ask about your firm See what’s coveredProfessional liability for design work, with no discipline excluded
Architects, engineers and design consultants of any size
Your current policy and any contract setting a required limit
Do architects and engineers need professional liability insurance?
In practice, yes. Professional liability, also called errors and omissions, responds when a client says your design or advice caused them a loss, and it pays the cost of defending you even when you did nothing wrong. A client contract can set the limit you have to carry, and the regulators do not all take the same line on whether you must have it.
A claim on your professional work does not need to succeed to hurt you. Defence costs begin immediately, and without cover they come out of the firm, which can mean out of the partners. Engineers and Geoscientists BC treats this as a practice rule, not a sales point: “registrants are required to let their client know in writing whether or not they have professional liability insurance”. A client is entitled to ask, and the regulator expects a written answer. Read the EGBC practice advisor questions (opens in a new tab).
We run a dedicated program for design professionals, which means we can go straight to insurers who already know this class rather than shopping your file around.
Ready to quote the practice? Build the architects and engineers file: discipline first, and only your discipline’s questions. Build the file →
Your file goes into a program. We quote it ourselves.
A program means we hold the authority to write design professionals directly with our markets. For your firm, that shows up in three ways.
Fewer hands on your file
Your submission goes to markets that already know this class, not out to whoever might say yes this month.
No discipline shut out
Structural and geotechnical work is often the first thing excluded elsewhere. The insurers we deal with treat it as regular work, not as an exception.
Limits that match the contract
$10 million, $20 million, $100 million, when a project agreement demands a limit, the number is rarely the obstacle.
Placed through A-rated program markets, with no discipline excluded. Small two and three-person practices are welcome, where a firm does not fit the program, we place it outside rather than turn it away.
Professional liability, in plain English.
Professional liability, also called errors and omissions, responds when someone says your professional work caused them a loss. It is the policy your client contracts usually insist on, and the one that answers when a design decision is questioned years later.
Claims about your design or advice
Defence costs and damages when a client alleges an error, an omission, or negligent advice.
Work you signed off years ago
Claims often arrive long after a project closes. Continuous cover is what keeps old work protected.
The cost of defending yourself
Defending a claim costs money even when you did nothing wrong. That is a large part of what you are buying.
Sub-consultants and joint ventures
Bring us the structure of the project team, how the work is shared changes how the cover should be written.
Commercial general liability and office contents answer for different things and sit alongside this cover. We arrange those too, in the same conversation, so nothing falls between two brokers.
Structural and geotechnical work is not an exception here.
Design professionals in higher-risk disciplines are used to hearing “we don’t write that.” Our program has no discipline exclusions. If your firm does any of the work below, it belongs in the conversation.
From a two-person practice to a multi-office firm.
The program suits established firms particularly well. Smaller firms are placed outside the program, with markets that suit their size. Same team, same speed.
Architects
Design intent on paper, and the claim that can arrive years after the drawings were sealed.
Structural engineers
Stamped calculations that hold buildings up, where a mistake costs money long before it is visible.
Civil engineers
Roads, servicing and site work, often for a municipality with its own contract terms.
Geotechnical
Opinions about ground nobody can fully see, relied on by everyone who builds above it.
Mechanical & electrical
Building systems that get noticed the day they fail, and the design file that gets pulled when they do.
Environmental consultants
Assessments and sign-offs that other people’s permits and deals depend on.
Project managers
Coordinating other firms’ work, which carries its own professional exposure even with no drawings signed.
Building science
Envelope reviews and depreciation reports, both of them documents people act on.
Renewing soon?
Tell us your renewal month and we will come back to you before it, with time to compare properly, not the week it expires.
A limit set for the contracts of a few years ago can stop matching the ones being signed now. That is the conversation worth having early.
How this can play out.
A client says a design decision caused a delay and claims the cost. Whether or not the claim succeeds, the defence starts immediately. Professional liability pays for that defence; general liability does not touch it.
The clauses that decide a design claim.
Professional liability policies for design firms carry a handful of clauses that matter more than the limit on the front page. These are the ones that decide claims.
The retroactive date
Your policy answers for past work only back to a set date. Switch insurers carelessly and years of finished projects can fall off the edge. The buildings still stand, the cover behind them does not.
Letting the policy lapse
Claims-made cover only responds while a policy is in force. Retire, pause or close the firm without run-off cover and a claim about old work arrives with nothing behind it.
Signing away more than you insure
A contract that promises unlimited liability, or waives your right to be defended, can put you past what any policy agreed to carry. The clause you sign becomes the exposure.
Work outside the declared discipline
A structural firm quietly taking on geotechnical scope, or sign-offs in a field the application never mentioned, can fall outside the cover even though the seal looks the same.
None of these show up on a certificate. They show up in the wording, so it is worth having yours read against the contracts you actually sign.
What design firms ask us.
My contract requires a specific limit. Can you meet it?
Usually, yes. Limits of $10 million, $20 million and $100 million are available through the program. Send us the insurance clause from the contract. We will read it and tell you exactly what it requires, which is not always what people assume it requires.
We do structural and geotechnical work. Is that a problem?
No. Nothing is excluded by discipline.
We are a small practice. Are we too small?
No. We work with firms of every size. The program is built for larger practices, so a two or three person firm is usually placed with a market that suits it better, same desk, same people, and no discipline excluded either way.
What happens to claims about work we finished years ago?
Professional liability generally responds based on when a claim is made, not when the work was done, which is why continuous cover matters and why a gap between policies is a real risk. Tell us if you have ever had a gap and we will look at it.
Do you insure environmental consultants?
Yes, environmental consulting sits inside the same program and the same markets.
Which insurers do you use?
We place with several markets that specialize in design professionals, and which one fits depends on your firm’s work. We will tell you exactly who is on your quote before you decide anything.
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.
The questions behind the questions.
What people usually look at next.
Not a design professional? consultants & professional services covers advisory firms.
Worth reading next: the standard of care in your contract. Also worth reading: whose insurance answers when a sub-consultant gets it wrong.
Tell us what your firm does.
A short conversation and your current declarations page is usually enough for us to tell you where you stand. Send us your current policy and any contract setting a required limit.
WRITTEN REPLY BY EMAIL · NO SALES CALLS UNLESS YOU ASK FOR ONE
Structural or geotechnical firm? See Structural & geotechnical, where cover can be harder to place.