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Mid-market insurance
Digital transformation consultancy insurance is the mix of professional indemnity, cyber, liability and management cover protecting firms that deliver ERP, CRM, cloud migration and change programmes. It matters because one failed implementation can produce a claim far larger than the fee for the whole engagement.
Part of: IT and technology business insurance
In short
A digital transformation consultancy usually needs professional indemnity (technology errors and omissions) as the core policy, because most claims allege that a design, configuration, data migration or programme management failure caused the client financial loss. Cyber, employers' liability, public liability, management liability and crime cover sit around it. The limits that matter are set by client contracts: liability caps, data protection super caps and requirements to maintain cover after the project ends. Subcontractor chains and overseas delivery centres need to be disclosed and matched to the policy's territorial and jurisdiction terms.
The centre of the programme is usually professional indemnity, often written as technology errors and omissions cover. The main exposure is a client alleging that a failed or late go-live, a flawed solution design, a broken integration or a lost data migration cost them money: remediation spend, interim staff, lost revenue, or the cost of a replacement supplier finishing the job.
Around that sit cyber cover for your own systems and the client data you handle, employers' liability, public liability for time on client sites, management liability for the directors, and commercial crime for invoice and payment fraud. A consultancy with 20 to 500 staff rarely lacks policies; the gaps tend to be in how the limits, aggregation wording and exclusions line up with the contracts it signs. Our pages on IT consultant insurance and ERP implementation consultant insurance cover the individual policies in more depth.
| Exposure | Cover that usually responds |
|---|---|
| ERP or CRM go-live fails or slips, client claims lost profits and remediation costs | Professional indemnity / tech E&O, subject to the limit, any contractual liability exclusion and the client contract cap |
| Data migration corrupts or loses client records | Professional indemnity for the client's loss; cyber may respond to your own incident costs |
| Client personal data exposed from your environment or a test copy | Cyber (first and third party); PI may also respond to client claims, depending on the wording |
| Error made by a subcontracted developer or offshore partner | Your PI usually responds as the contracting party, subject to subcontractor conditions; recovery depends on their cover |
| Staff injury or illness, including stress claims | Employers' liability, with a statutory minimum of £5 million |
| Injury or damage during workshops or onsite work at client premises | Public liability |
| Claims against directors by investors, lenders, employees or regulators | Management liability or D&O |
| Laptops lost or stolen, office damage, loss of revenue after an insured event | Property and business interruption |
| Supplier or client payments diverted by impersonation | Commercial crime or a social engineering extension |
Employers' liability is compulsory under the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Regulations 1998, which set a minimum of £5 million for any one occurrence. Many firms of this size choose a higher limit.
Transformation contracts are usually negotiated with procurement and legal teams that know exactly what they want from a supplier's insurance. The terms that move the programme most are:
A consultancy runs a weekend migration of a client's finance platform. A misconfigured integration means supplier invoices fail to post for nine days. The client claims for overtime, interim staff and late payment charges. Professional indemnity is the policy most likely to respond, subject to the contract cap and any exclusion for liability assumed under contract.
Build work is subcontracted to a delivery partner abroad and a defect reaches production. The client sues the UK consultancy, which signed the head contract. The questions are whether the PI covers subcontracted work, whether the territorial limits include the partner's location, and whether the subcontract preserves your right to recover. See PI when using subcontractors.
A team copies production personal data into a test environment that is later exposed. Cyber cover is likely to deal with forensics and notification costs, while the client's claim may fall under PI or cyber depending on how the two wordings interact. More scenarios are in IT consultant and developer claims examples and software delivery project failure claims.
A strong submission for a transformation consultancy usually includes:
Growing consultancies should review the whole programme, not just the PI renewal, when:
Our insurance programme review looks at limits, contracts and wordings together, and the IT and technology business insurance hub covers the wider sector.
Apex arranges professional indemnity, cyber and commercial programmes for technology consultancies; a broker reads every enquiry.
Usually professional indemnity or technology errors and omissions as the core policy, with cyber, employers' liability, public liability, management liability and commercial crime around it. Employers' liability is a legal requirement for most employers. The right limits depend on your client contracts, especially liability caps and data protection super caps, so read the contracts and the policies together.
It commonly does where the client alleges negligence or breach of professional duty that caused financial loss, subject to the policy terms. Many wordings restrict cover for liquidated damages, fee refunds and liability accepted under contract beyond what the law would impose, so check those exclusions against your contracts.
PI usually responds to claims against you as the contracting party, including for subcontracted work, if the insurer knows about it and any conditions are met. Some policies require subcontractors to hold their own PI or require you to keep recovery rights. Overseas partners also raise territorial questions.
It is a sensible starting point, but look at the basis of the limit as well. A cap applies per contract, while an aggregate PI limit is shared across every claim in the year. Firms with several large contracts often buy each and every claim cover or an excess layer.
Cyber policies commonly cover your response costs and liability following a breach of data in your care, subject to the policy terms. Whether a client's wider losses from a failed migration are covered usually turns on the PI wording, so it helps to have both policies reviewed together.
Send us your current schedules or renewal pack and we will review the whole programme and tell you plainly what to keep and what to change. No fee and no obligation. Or call 0117 325 0027.
Book a programme review Get a quoteApex 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, and it does not guarantee that cover will be available or on what terms.
