Professional Indemnity Insurance Ireland: Who Needs It and What It Covers

What is professional indemnity insurance in Ireland?

Professional indemnity insurance protects you when the advice, design or professional service you provided is alleged to have caused someone a financial loss. If a client says your report was wrong, your drawings were flawed, your figures were mistaken or you missed a deadline that cost them money, the policy responds to the legal costs of defending you and to any compensation you are found liable to pay. It covers mistakes and negligence in your work — not injury or property damage, which is what public liability insurance is for.

It is also one of the most misunderstood covers in Irish business insurance, because it works differently to almost every other policy a small firm buys.

Who needs professional indemnity insurance in Ireland?

Broadly, anyone whose business sells knowledge, judgement or a professional deliverable rather than a physical product. If a client could plausibly say “I relied on what you told me and it cost me money”, you are in the market for this cover.

In practice, three groups tend to need it:

• Professions where a professional body requires it. A number of Irish professional bodies make professional indemnity cover a condition of practising or of holding a practising certificate — solicitors, accountants, architects and various financial and healthcare professionals among them. The required limits and terms are set by the relevant body, so the starting point is always your own body’s current rules rather than a general guide.
• Businesses whose clients insist on it. Public sector tenders, larger corporate clients, main contractors and framework agreements commonly require a stated minimum limit of indemnity before you can be appointed, and will ask for a certificate as evidence.
• Everyone else who advises for a living. Consultants, engineers, surveyors, IT and software developers, marketing and design agencies, recruiters, bookkeepers, training providers and a long list of similar businesses buy it because the risk is real, not because anyone made them.

The useful question is not “what is my job title?” but “what would a dissatisfied client sue me for?” If the answer is money they lost by relying on your work, professional indemnity is the policy that responds.

What does professional indemnity insurance cover?

Cover varies by insurer and by profession, but a typical Irish policy is built around defending and settling allegations connected to your professional work. Most policies deal with:

• Professional negligence — errors, omissions or a failure to exercise reasonable skill and care in the service you provided.
• Legal defence costs — usually the largest early expense, and payable even where the allegation is eventually shown to be unfounded.
• Compensation and damages awarded against you, or agreed in settlement with the insurer’s consent.
• Breach of professional duty or of contract in the performance of your services.
• Loss of documents or data belonging to a client, and the cost of reconstituting it.
• Defamation and unintentional infringement of intellectual property arising from your work, and dishonesty of employees connected to the services — both often included, but worth confirming rather than assuming.

What is usually not covered?

Just as important is what sits outside it. Professional indemnity does not pay for injury to a member of the public or damage to their property — that is public liability — nor for injury to your own staff, which is employers’ liability. It will not respond to deliberate wrongdoing, to known circumstances you failed to disclose when you took out the policy, to trading losses or insolvency, or to guarantees you gave that go beyond exercising reasonable skill and care. Cyber incidents and data breaches are increasingly handled by a separate cyber policy.

How is professional indemnity different from public liability insurance?

This is the single most common source of confusion, and the difference matters because holding one does not protect you against the other.

	Professional indemnity	Public liability
Responds to	Financial loss caused by your advice, design or professional service	Injury to a third party, or damage to their property
Typical claim	A client says your specification was wrong and the rework cost them money	A visitor trips at your premises, or you damage a client’s property on site
Triggered by	The claim being made against you during the policy period	The injury or damage occurring during the policy period
Cover continues after you stop trading?	Only if you buy run-off cover	Generally not needed once the exposure ends
Who typically needs it	Advisers, consultants, designers, regulated professionals	Almost any business with premises, customers or site access

Many firms need both, plus employers’ liability once they take on staff. Our overview of business insurance in Ireland sets out how the pieces fit together.

What does “claims made” mean, and why does the retroactive date matter?

Professional indemnity is almost always written on a claims made basis. The policy that responds is the one in force on the day the claim is made against you — not the one that was in force when you did the work. That is the opposite of how motor or public liability cover behaves, and it has two practical consequences.

The first is that you need continuous cover. If you let the policy lapse and a client complains six months later about a job you finished two years ago, there is no live policy to respond — even though you were insured throughout the period when the work was done.

The second is the retroactive date. Most policies will only consider claims arising from work carried out after a specified date, usually the date you first took out continuous cover. Work done before that date sits outside the policy. When you move insurer, keeping the original retroactive date intact is one of the most valuable things to negotiate — if it is reset to the new inception date, years of past work quietly become uninsured. It is worth checking this on your schedule at every renewal.

What is run-off cover and do I need it?

Because the policy responds to claims made rather than work done, cover has to outlive the business. Run-off cover keeps a policy alive after you have retired, sold up, changed profession or wound the company down, so that a claim arriving later still has somewhere to land.

Some professional bodies specify a minimum run-off period for their members. Where they do not, the sensible period is guided by how long a client could realistically bring a claim relating to your work, which depends on the nature of the work and the contract. A conversation with your solicitor and your broker before you cancel is time well spent, because run-off generally cannot be bought retrospectively once cover has ended.

How much does professional indemnity insurance cost in Ireland?

There is no meaningful average, because the range across professions is enormous — a sole-trader bookkeeper and a structural engineering practice are not in the same pricing world. More useful than a figure that will not apply to you is understanding what the underwriter is looking at.

Factor	Why it affects your premium
Profession and activities	The dominant factor. Advice with large downstream financial or structural consequences is rated very differently to lower-exposure services.
Fee income or turnover	Used as a proxy for the volume and size of work at risk.
Limit of indemnity	Higher limits cost more, though not in a straight line — doubling the limit rarely doubles the premium.
Claims and circumstances history	Past claims, and any circumstances notified but not yet resolved, are examined closely.
Contracts, client base and excess	Work for public bodies, large corporates or overseas clients changes the risk profile; a higher excess lowers the premium but increases what you fund yourself.
Risk management	Written contracts, clear scopes of work, documented sign-offs and qualified staff all strengthen your presentation to insurers.

Because pricing is judgement-led rather than formula-driven, presentation matters. A proposal that explains what you do, what you do not do, and how you control risk is received differently to a bare set of figures.

How do I choose the right limit of indemnity?

Start with any limit your professional body or your contracts require, since that sets a floor. Then consider the scale of loss a client could suffer if your work went wrong — the limit should reflect the exposure, not simply your fee. Check whether it applies on an “any one claim” basis or in the aggregate for the year, because the second can be exhausted by an earlier claim, and confirm whether defence costs are paid in addition to the limit or come out of it.

The bottom line

Professional indemnity insurance is the policy that stands behind your professional judgement. If your business sells advice, design or expertise, a dissatisfied client is a commercial risk that public liability cover will not touch. The three things to get right are continuous cover with an unbroken retroactive date, a limit that reflects the loss your client could suffer rather than the fee you charged, and a plan for run-off before you ever cancel a policy. Get those right and the rest is detail.

Breeze Insurance is an Irish insurance broker working with a panel of leading Irish insurers, and we arrange professional indemnity cover alongside the wider business insurance most firms need — and, for the sole traders among our clients who are on the road between sites, van insurance too. If you would like to talk it through with a person rather than a form, call us on 0818 700 300 or request a quote online.

Frequently asked questions

Is professional indemnity insurance a legal requirement in Ireland?

There is no single law requiring every business to hold it. It becomes effectively compulsory in two ways: some professional bodies make it a condition of practising or of holding a practising certificate, and many clients and tenders require a stated minimum limit before they will appoint you. Check your own professional body’s current requirements, as they set the terms for their members.

What is the difference between professional indemnity and public liability insurance?

Professional indemnity responds to financial loss a client suffers because of your advice or professional work. Public liability responds to physical injury to a third party or damage to their property. A design error that costs a client money is a professional indemnity matter; a visitor injured at your office is a public liability matter. Many businesses need both.

Do sole traders need professional indemnity insurance?

If you provide advice, design or professional services on your own account, you carry the same exposure as a larger practice — and, without a company structure, potentially more of it personally. Sole traders in consultancy, IT, engineering and design commonly hold cover, and often find clients ask for evidence of it before signing a contract.

Does professional indemnity insurance cover work I did in previous years?

Only back as far as the retroactive date shown on your policy schedule, and only if you have maintained continuous cover since then. This is why it is important to preserve the original retroactive date when you switch insurer, and why a lapse in cover can leave historic work exposed.

What happens to my cover if I retire or close the business?

Because the policy responds to claims made against you rather than to when the work was done, cancelling it ends your protection for past work as well as future work. Run-off cover keeps the policy alive for an agreed period afterwards. Arrange it before the existing policy ends, as it is generally not available once cover has already lapsed.

How do I get a professional indemnity quote in Ireland?

You will usually be asked for a description of your services, your fee income or turnover, the limit of indemnity you need, details of your qualifications and staff, and full disclosure of any claims or circumstances that might give rise to one. A broker can put that presentation to insurers on your behalf. Call Breeze Insurance on 0818 700 300 or request a quote at breezeinsurance.ie/free-quote.

This article is general information, not advice on any specific policy. Cover, terms and exclusions vary between insurers — always read your policy documents and speak to us about your own circumstances.

Breeze Insurance Ltd. is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Registered in the Republic of Ireland with registration number 109879 and registered address at 38/39 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin 2, D02 NX53. Director: Colin Long.