Posted By David Sinclair For reasons I won't go into, I have just had cause to check a well known provider's professional indemnity insurance policy for Health and Safety Practitioners. The first line of the policy states that the policy is issues on a "claims paid" basis and as such the policy only covers claims notified to the insurer during the life of the policy. Since many (if not most) health and safety issues will only come to light years after the initial advice was given, Health and Safety Consultants, who have this type of policy will find they are not covered by their policy. Consultants need to be aware that any claim arising in say 2005, for advice given in 2003, will not be covered by his 2003 indemnity insurance policy. This is despit the fact that an injured person has three years from the date of occurrence to sue for damages. This is scary. Regards. David

Posted By Maddy McMahon David I believe that all Professional Indemnity insurance policies in the UK are written on a "claims made" basis. Claims are covered by the policy active at the time of notification and not the policy in force at the time the event happened. And so if you don't renew the policy you don't have any cover if a new claim is made after the policy has expired. "Claims made" policies (other than PI) are unusual but your insurance broker should be able to explain the implications and what you need to do to make sure you are adequately covered. As a client, you could specify in the contract that the contractor takes out PI insurance for a specific number of years after the work has been completed, although I'm not sure how useful this would be in practice. Regards Maddy

Posted By Robert M Edwards I have looked at many insurance policies in pursuit of negligence claims and the majority covering consultancy work in high risk fields have always been ' duration of certificate' ie claims arising during the time a policy was in force. I would very much like to look at the wording of the policies discussed in this thread, as clearly if the writers are correct, some of the policies are next to useless for those relying on them. The concern then should also be the consultants as they are personally liable for the negligence also!

Posted By David Sinclair Thank you for all your comments on this subject. My primary aim was to raise peoples (primarily consultants)awareness to the fact that when they cease trading (i.e. retire or move into employment), they may still be liable for claims arising for many years (6-12 in most cases). Those thinking about going into consultancy for the first time (as well as existing consultants) should seriously consider Company status, or Limited Liability Partnerships ("LLP"), to limit future liability. Regards. David Regards. David

Posted By Arran Linton - Smith David, Following the Merrett v Babb case in 2001, a salaried professionals can now be liable in his or her personal capacity, to a client, notwithstanding that they were acting in the course of their employment when the advice was given. Limited company status no longer protects you from future potential claims.

Posted By Jason Gould Thank all This thread has been very interesting. I was considering going self employed after obtaining the nebosh 2 and registering ith iosh. (2years from now hehehehe) I am due some monies and thought i was covering everything and that included pi. I now will tred carefully with these policies and ensure I will have the cover needed after Im a milionare and happily retired at 33 (dont think so). Seriously i would have missed this point and probably failed to keep pi should i have decided to be employed for a comany.

Posted By Arran Linton - Smith David, I have also asked a broker about the issue of buying run off insurance after a company has folded. He also suggested that it would be very difficult to obtain and if you could it would be very expensive because of greater potential risk of a claim as an outcome of the company folding. We also discussed individual liability, but the problems here is that loss adjusters representing the employer may then try and immediatly pass the claim on to you. There is a school of thought amongst some within the insurance industry that being insured can increase the likelihood of a claim exposure. When I was a nurse, by being a member of the Royal College of Nursing I had professional indemnity insurance automatically as part of my membership. It would be interesting to know how much a similar scheme would cost if IOSH did something similar?