Posted By Mick Moran Your advice is appreciated. I am considering to do some voluntary weekend work for companies/organisations/SME's in audit of health & safety management systems and possibly subsequent work found from the OHSAS 18001 audit. I intend to target small/medium sized automotive/plant repair organisations having 26 yrs experience in this field of work. I assume as a legal requirement that I would need some Professional Indemnity Insurance to cover any claims made against me. I will eventually consider self-employment in consultancy once I have gained experience and contacts. Please can anyone advise me on how best to approach this matter. Look forward to your replies. Mike Moran Grad IOSH DipRSA AAE MIMI

Posted By Andrew Brown I'm not aware there is a legal requirement for professional indemnity cover. You only legally have to have Employers Liability Compulsory Insurance and then only if you have employees. A safety consultancy i know had an incident on a job they were working on, insurance company tried passing the claim on to the consultancy. Consultancy's insurers tried to weedle out of the claim on a technicality. When clients insurers were told claim went away. When i considered setting up on my own a few years ago i concluded that you would be better off setting up a limited company yourself and not bother with the insurance. Most clients who use self employed consultants don't ask whether you have PI anyway. PI seems to be about giving your clients insurance company somebody to sue, its not as if you are leaving somebody with no means of getting compensation after an accident if you don't have it. Any injured party is going to have to claim off your client anyway. Once insurers see a limited company with no assets what are they going to do? I can see why larger consultancies would have PI as one claim could shut them down. Controversial view perhaps and i must say i am employed so don't need PI myself. However i would interested to hear what other self employed consultants think and whether they can afford a decent level of cover.