How much is professional indemnity insurance? How much is professional indemnity insurance?

A good way to calculate the amount of PI cover you might want to get is by taking stock of the risks your business might face. These could include, for example, unintentional mistakes made on the job, contract issues or intellectual property disputes.

It can help to start by identifying each risk your business faces, and then asking yourself these high-level questions:
1. What risks do you face?
2. What insurance could cover this risk?
3. How likely is this to happen to my business?
4. How much would this risk cost my business in lost revenue?
5. How much does cover for this risk cost?
6. How much would the excess for this risk cost?

For example:

• You’re a freelance photographer: A client claims that the right to a photo you’ve taken is theirs. This has happened five times in the last year. The last time this happened, it cost your business £x in compensation and legal fees. Plus, it costs you several days' work to deal with the issue.
• You’re a consultant: You’ve pulled together data for a report published in your client’s name, but they’ve received complaints about the report. This has never happened before, but this incident has cost you £x in legal fees. It’s also taken you away from other client work to deal with the issue.
• You’re a graphic designer: You incorporate a design element which another artist claims is a copy of their work. This has happened three times in the last two years, and previously it has cost around £x in legal fees and compensation. Additionally, you’ve had to turn down work from other clients to deal with this issue.

Professional indemnity insurance could potentially cover each of the scenarios above. That said, each scenario is different, and the level of cover and excess will depend on what you’re comfortable with.

Based on this simple assessment, you may decide that the price of professional indemnity insurance is worth it for a risk that could potentially cost your business thousands of pounds.

Professional indemnity insurance may be important to your business, but it might not be the only protection you need to have in place to cover potential risks to you. Find out more about how to get the right combination of covers to protect your work as a professional.

While business insurance covers a range of eventualities and circumstances, it doesn’t cover everything. Please make sure to read your policy documents carefully to understand the full details around exclusions, terms and limits of your cover.

Every insurer will offer a different price for their professional indemnity cover.

The cost of business insurance is based on several factors, including your industry, the size of your business and your claims history. To learn more, take a read of our guide on what affects the cost of your cover.

You can find out how much PI insurance will be if you took a policy out with Superscript by starting a quote. Building a quote only takes a few minutes and is customised based on your business needs — this means your quote will be unique to you.

Professional indemnity insurance isn’t a legal requirement. But this doesn’t mean it’s not worth considering.

While it may seem like another business cost that you could probably do without, buying PI insurance may likely be cheaper than the cost of compensation and legal fees if a claim were made against you, so it's worth thinking about.