Accountants Professional Indemnity Insurance
From PIA
Monday, 22nd November 2010 4:37 pm
Professional Indemnity Insurance
Different Insurance policies for different professions, the UK and Ireland have various regulators for each traditional profession and each of those regulators have set down specific professional Indemnity Insurance requirements for their authorized members.
The main bodies where this requirement comes into place are as follows:
Accountants
- I.C.A. (Chartered) institute of chartered accountants
- I.C.A.E.W. The institute of chartered accountants in England and Wales
- I.C.A.S. The institute of chartered accountants in Ireland
- ACCA The association of chartered certified accountants
- C.I.M.A The chartered institute of management accountants
- C.I.P.F.A. The chartered institute of Public finance and accountancy
Underwriters and Insurers, have adapted their policies over the years to incorporate each of the regulators specific covers they want their members to have when purchasing a Professional Indemnity Insurance policy. It would be true to say that many accountants’ policies are now standard policy wordings to incorporate the regulators demands across most of the major suppliers that offer Professional Indemnity cover. Indeed the (ICA) Institute of chartered accountants wordings, (one of the best policies available for accountants giving covers such as any one claim, civil liability, excluding costs and expenses on excess and damage claims, is often extended or used for most accountancy type risks.
There are set minimum levels of Indemnity set by the various regulators so all registered accountants or their brokers would need to make sure that any Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) policy that they purchased complied with these minimum levels , this is very often set by turnover, stuff and client profile.
It could also be set by the type of work that the accountant gets involved with, for instance if they were offering auditing, financial report, dealing with PLC’s, merges/acquisitions, taxation, financial advise, company formations negotiations and settlements, management accountancy book keeping.
Other professions that require Professional Indemnity –
- Architects
- designers
- architectural technicians
- Engineers
- Electrical engineers
- Design engineers,
- Civil Engineers,
- Structural Engineer, Mechanical Engineers,
- Chemical Engineers
- Consulting Engineers.
Clearly any policies put in place for these professions are going to be geared together for the construction industry, construction act, however like accountants there are governing bodies and associations who regulate these professions such as for Architects the Royal Institute of British Architects, the royal institute of Architects of Scotland and the association of consultant architects, the ‘ARB’ the architects registration board for engineers.
