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Building services consultants
Yes. If you design air conditioning, advise clients on it or inspect it as an accredited energy assessor, you need professional indemnity insurance. You sell judgement: cooling loads, plant and refrigerant choices, inspection findings and recommendations to keep or replace a system. When that judgement is wrong, the client’s loss is financial, and public liability is not written to pay it. For inspectors, GOV.UK also says accreditation scheme members must maintain appropriate PI cover.
Part of: Engineers’ professional indemnity insurance
In short
Air conditioning consultants are paid for advice, so their main exposure is financial loss from negligent design, inspection or recommendations, which PI covers subject to the policy terms. In England and Wales, systems above 12kW must have their accessible parts inspected by an energy assessor at least every five years. The Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations 2012 require assessors to belong to an approved accreditation scheme, to use reasonable care and skill, and to lodge report data on a government register that keeps it for at least 20 years. The person who controls the system can enforce that duty. Design consultants’ limits are usually set by their appointments.
Last reviewed 5 October 2026 by the Apex professional indemnity team.
An air conditioning consultant rarely touches the plant. You calculate cooling loads, select systems and refrigerants, write specifications, inspect existing systems and tell owners whether their plant is efficient, oversized or due for replacement. Each is an opinion somebody else spends money on.
Public liability (PL) pays for accidental injury and accidental damage to other people’s property, such as a ceiling tile dislodged during a roof-void inspection. It is not built for consultancy claims, where nothing was damaged by accident but a client bought the wrong plant, missed a cost it should have been warned about, or acted on a recommendation that did not deliver. Professional indemnity (PI) insurance usually covers your liability for that loss, and the cost of defending the allegation.
This page is for two groups who often overlap:
If you also install or service equipment, tell your insurer: a consultancy policy may not contemplate hands-on work.
The examples below are illustrative, not real claims. They show allegations air conditioning consultants and assessors can face.
None of these involves accidental damage. Each alleges that your design, inspection or advice fell below the standard of a competent air conditioning consultant.
An expert reviewing your work will compare it with the law that applied, the methodology you said you followed and the standards a competent designer would have used.
| Rule or standard | What it says | Why it matters to your PI |
|---|---|---|
| Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012, regs 17 and 18 | Systems with an effective rated output of more than 12kW must have their accessible parts inspected by an energy assessor, with no more than five years between inspections. Units in a building whose temperature one person can control count as one system. | Clients rely on your view of whether their split units are in scope. GOV.UK puts the penalty for having no inspection report at £300. |
| The same Regulations, reg 19 | The report must assess efficiency and sizing against the building’s cooling requirements, advise on cost-effective improvement, replacement and alternative solutions, and consider how the system can optimise its performance under typical operating conditions. | The law prescribes the advice, so clients act on it. |
| CIBSE TM44 | Inspection of air conditioning systems: a guide to EPBD compliance. GOV.UK’s guidance says it describes the appropriate assessment methodology. | Your inspection is likely to be tested against it. |
| BS EN 378-1:2016+A1:2020 | Safety and environmental requirements for refrigerating systems and heat pumps. BSI says it helps identify installation location and the maximum charge suitable for a room’s volume. | Refrigerant choice and charge are design decisions with safety consequences. |
| Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, reg 9 | Designers must take into account the general principles of prevention to eliminate, so far as reasonably practicable, foreseeable risks to people who build, maintain or clean a structure or work in it, and pass on information about risks that remain. | Safe maintenance access to plant is a design duty, not only the contractor’s. |
| Ozone-depleting substances rules (Environment Agency and Defra) | Ozone-depleting substances, a list that includes HCFC-22, must not be used to service existing equipment. Equipment containing them can still be used as long as it is not leaking. | Older plant can become unrepairable after one leak, so reports should say what refrigerant it uses. |
The 2012 Regulations cover England and Wales. GOV.UK’s guidance notes that Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate requirements.
If you inspect under the 2012 Regulations, they shape your liability as much as your terms of business do.
Keep the inspection an inspection. GOV.UK’s guidance says cleaning and adjusting controls are not part of the procedure, because physical work of that kind could change the level of professional risk to the energy assessor. Agree any adjustments as a separate instruction, tell your insurer, and keep your notes and photographs for as long as the report sits on the register.
| Usually covered by PI | Often excluded or limited | Needs a different policy |
|---|---|---|
| Negligent cooling load calculations, system selection and specification | Guaranteed energy savings or performance promised beyond reasonable care and skill | Accidental damage to a client’s property during a site visit (public liability) |
| Errors or omissions in inspection reports and their recommendations | Fines and penalty charges, which PI wordings commonly exclude | Injury to your own staff on roofs and in plant rooms (employers’ liability) |
| Negligent technical due diligence and plant condition surveys | Installation, servicing and repair work, unless declared and covered | Breakdown of a client’s plant (the owner’s engineering or breakdown cover) |
| Claims for breach of the statutory duty of care owed to the person controlling the system, subject to the wording | Asbestos-related claims arising from inspections in older buildings | Damage to or loss of your own test instruments and laptops (equipment cover) |
| Defence costs and expert evidence | Claims or circumstances you knew about before the policy began | Loss of client data in a cyber attack (cyber insurance) |
Cover depends on the insurer accepting the risk and on its terms. Check the business description: a policy for an “energy assessor” may not stretch to design or due diligence, and one written for design may not mention lodged inspection reports.
No statute sets a minimum limit. For inspection work, check your accreditation scheme’s PI requirement at each renewal. For design and consultancy, whoever appoints you sets the figure: developers, landlords, public sector frameworks and, after a novation, the design and build contractor. In each appointment, check:
PI is claims-made: it answers claims first made while the policy is in force. Inspection data stays on the register for at least 20 years and a sizing recommendation may only be tested by the next hot summer, so keep cover continuous and arrange run-off when you retire or stop inspecting; see run-off cover explained. If an appointment asks for more than you hold, read what to do when a contract requires a higher PI limit.
A complete proposal gets better terms than a bare one, and a broker can only present what you tell us. Have these ready:
Speak to a broker
PI for air conditioning consultants, placed by a named broker
Start the online proposal and save it as you go, or leave your number and a named broker will call you back, usually the same working day.
Apex Insurance Brokers is an independent insurance broker based in Bristol, established in 2009 and authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We are not tied to one insurer: we work with over 30 markets, including Lloyd’s syndicates through wholesale brokers, and every client has a named broker who handles the placement, mid-term changes, certificates for clients and the renewal.
Yes, if you design, specify or inspect air conditioning, or advise clients on what to do with it. Mistakes in that work cause financial loss rather than accidental damage, so public liability usually won’t respond. PI covers your liability for negligent design, inspection reports and recommendations, and the cost of defending a claim, subject to the policy terms.
No law requires PI directly. If you inspect systems under the Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations 2012 you must belong to an approved accreditation scheme, and GOV.UK says members must maintain appropriate professional indemnity cover. Design-only consultants have no legal requirement, but developers, landlords and contractors usually set a minimum limit in the appointment.
Usually, yes. Regulation 24 of the 2012 Regulations requires energy assessors to use reasonable care and skill, and for an inspection report that duty is enforceable by the relevant person: whoever controls the operation of the system. PI is designed to respond to such claims, subject to its terms.
Not necessarily. GOV.UK’s guidance says cleaning and control adjustments are not part of the inspection procedure because they could change the assessor’s professional risk. If you agree to change settings, record it as a separate instruction and check your policy covers it. Physical damage caused by the work may be a matter for public liability instead.
PI can respond if a forecast was negligent, for example because it used the wrong operating hours, subject to the policy terms. It usually won’t pay where you guaranteed a level of savings, because that liability comes from the promise rather than from a lack of care. Present savings as estimates and record the assumptions behind them.
Yes. PI is claims-made, so a claim made after your policy lapses is not covered, however old the work. Inspection report data stays on the government register for at least 20 years, and design faults can surface long after handover. Run-off cover is designed to respond to claims made after you stop, subject to its terms.
Apex arranges professional indemnity insurance for air conditioning consultants across the UK. Tell us about your work and we’ll find cover that fits. Or call 0117 325 0027.
Start your PI proposal Call 0117 325 0027Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered in England and Wales, company number 07014570. This page is general information, not advice on your individual circumstances. Cover is always subject to the insurer’s acceptance and the policy terms, and this page does not guarantee that cover will be available or on what terms.
