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Internet services
Yes: domain name registrars and resellers need professional indemnity insurance, because one missed renewal, DNS change or transfer can take a customer’s website and email offline or hand its name to someone else. Those are financial losses, not injuries or property damage, so public liability does not respond. PI usually pays your defence costs and any compensation when a customer says you mishandled its domain. Cyber insurance usually covers your own costs if your platform or customer accounts are attacked.
Part of: Professional indemnity for IT professionals
In short
A .uk domain keeps working for 30 days after expiry; from day 30 to day 90 it stops resolving but can still be renewed; after day 90 it cannot be renewed and it is then dropped. For generic domains such as .com, ICANN’s Expired Registration Recovery Policy requires notices about a month and a week before expiry and another within five days after. Nominet requires registrars to register names in the customer’s name unless the customer explicitly agrees otherwise. Disputes run through Nominet’s DRS or the UDRP. PI usually covers negligent handling of renewals, DNS, transfers and registrant details; cyber covers attacks on your systems.
Last reviewed 5 October 2026 by the Apex professional indemnity team.
A domain name is the address a business’s website, email, payment pages and customer logins hang from. When you register, renew, transfer or host DNS for that name, small administrative errors have outsized effects: a lapsed renewal or a deleted record can stop a firm taking orders or receiving email within hours.
Those losses are financial. Nobody is injured and nothing is physically damaged, so public liability insurance has nothing to respond to. The customer’s complaint is that you handled its domain without proper care: you missed a renewal, changed the wrong record, released the name to the wrong person or registered it in the wrong name. That is a professional indemnity claim.
The position is the same whether you are a registrar with a direct relationship with the registry or a reseller selling through a wholesale registrar’s platform. The customer contracts with you, so the customer’s claim comes to you, while the wholesale terms behind you often limit what you can recover upstream.
These examples are illustrative, not real claims. They show what goes wrong, who loses money and what the customer alleges.
Each allegation is about the care you took over an administrative or technical task. PI is the policy written to answer them, subject to its terms.
A registrar’s work is measured against its registry agreements, the published lifecycle and dispute policies, and its own customer terms. These are the main reference points for UK businesses.
| Rule or policy | What it says | Why it matters to your PI |
|---|---|---|
| .UK Registry-Registrar Agreement (Nominet), Part B | Applies to every registrar regardless of tag type. Registrars must register a domain in the customer’s name unless they or their reseller have the customer’s explicit prior consent to use a different name, provide complete and accurate registrant data, and make registrants aware of their contract and its key terms before it is made and before renewal. | Registering in the wrong name, or failing to explain renewal terms, gives a customer a ready-made allegation. |
| Nominet registrar tag types | Accredited Channel Partners meet Nominet’s highest standard for registrars managing domains for others; Channel Partners meet the general requirements; Self-Managed tags are for registrars managing mainly their own domains. | Underwriters will ask which tag you hold and what standards you have committed to. |
| ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy | For generic top-level domains, registrars must send expiry notices about one month and about one week before expiry and another within five days after expiry, and must display renewal, post-expiration renewal and restore fees. Registries offer a 30-day Redemption Grace Period after deletion. | Missing a required notice is hard to defend if a lapsed .com leads to a claim. |
| Nominet Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) | A complainant must show rights in a name or mark identical or similar to the domain and that the registration is abusive. Cases go to free mediation, then to an independent expert, who can order transfer, cancellation or suspension. Either side can still go to court. | You implement outcomes; customers who lose a name sometimes look for someone else to blame. |
| Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) | For generic domains, a complainant must prove the name is identical or confusingly similar to its mark, the registrant has no rights or legitimate interests, and the name was registered and is being used in bad faith. The registrar waits ten business days before implementing a transfer or cancellation, and does not implement it if the registrant starts court proceedings in that time. | Implementing a decision too early, or ignoring court papers, is a process error with real consequences. |
Lapsed renewals and DNS errors are hard to defend, because the customer usually notices only when something stops working and then asks why nobody warned it. For .uk names, Nominet’s expiry process has run as follows since September 2022.
| Time after expiry | What happens to a .uk domain | What the customer experiences |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 30 days | Fully operational and available to renew. | Nothing changes, so reminders are easy to ignore. |
| 30 to 90 days | Stops resolving but can still be renewed. | Website and email fail; support calls start. |
| 90 to 95 days | Still not resolving and can no longer be renewed. | The name cannot be rescued through renewal. |
| After 95 days | Dropped at a time published in Nominet’s daily drop list. | Anyone can register it, including competitors. |
Renewal disputes tend to come down to a gap between what the customer believed would happen and what your process did. Close those gaps in writing:
| Usually covered by PI | Often excluded or limited | Needs a different policy |
|---|---|---|
| Missed, late or mishandled renewals caused by your error | Refunds of registration and renewal fees | Attacks on your registration platform or customer database (cyber insurance) |
| DNS, zone file and DNSSEC configuration errors | Losses from impersonation or social engineering, unless the policy includes them | Money stolen from your accounts through payment fraud (crime cover) |
| Transfers or registrant changes processed wrongly | Indemnities to registries or wholesale registrars beyond your liability at law | Your own lost income during a registry or upstream outage (business interruption or cyber) |
| Domains registered in the wrong name or with the wrong details | Claims that a customer’s domain infringes a trade mark, unless intellectual property cover is included | Injury to visitors or staff (public and employers’ liability) |
| Defence costs, including technical experts | Uptime guarantees for hosted DNS beyond reasonable care | Claims against your directors personally (directors and officers cover) |
Cover depends on the wording and is always subject to the policy terms. If you sell hosting, email, SSL certificates or website building alongside domains, make sure each activity is described in the policy.
Many registrar incidents start as a security problem and end as a customer claim, so your PI, which insurers often write for technology firms as technology errors and omissions cover, has to be read alongside your cyber policy.
Take an account takeover. Criminals use stolen passwords to log in to customer accounts on your platform and redirect domains. Cyber insurance usually pays your costs to investigate, secure the platform, notify affected customers where required and recover lost income. The customers’ claims that you should have prevented it, for example by requiring multi-factor authentication, are a liability question. Depending on the wordings they may sit under PI or the liability section of your cyber policy.
A support desk tricked into releasing a domain is different again: no system was hacked, but a person was deceived. Some policies treat that as social engineering and limit or exclude it. Check how your PI and cyber policies split these events before one happens. Our guide to cyber insurance explained covers the main sections.
Your limit should reflect the worst single platform failure, not the average complaint. A billing fault that stops thousands of renewals, or a DNS outage across your hosted zones, produces many customer claims from one cause, and policies often group those under one limit. Corporate brand portfolios and agency resellers may also set minimum PI levels in their contracts.
A complete proposal gets better terms than a bare one, and a broker can only present what you tell us. Have these ready:
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PI for domain name registrars, 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. A missed renewal, DNS mistake or wrongly processed transfer can stop a customer’s website and email working or lose it the name, causing financial loss that public liability does not cover. PI pays defence costs and compensation when a customer alleges you mishandled its domain, subject to the policy terms.
No law requires registrars or resellers to hold PI. Nominet asks applicants for its Accredited Channel Partner tag for information about insurance levels suited to the type and scale of their business, and corporate customers and agency partners often require PI in their contracts.
It depends on your terms and what you promised. If the customer chose not to renew, the loss is usually its own. If you offered auto-renewal or reminders and your process failed, the customer may claim against you, and PI may respond subject to the policy terms. Clear renewal terms are your strongest defence.
Possibly. If staff released a transfer code or changed account details without following your verification procedure, the customer’s claim may fall within PI. Some policies limit or exclude losses involving social engineering, and your own response costs are a cyber matter, so check how both policies treat it.
The dispute is between the complainant and the registrant, decided by an independent expert or panel. Your role is to implement the outcome correctly. Under the UDRP the registrar waits ten business days before acting on a transfer or cancellation, and holds off if the registrant starts court proceedings.
Yes. Your customers contract with you, so their claims come to you, and wholesale terms usually limit what you can recover upstream. Nominet’s rules also expect domains to be registered in the customer’s name unless it gives explicit prior consent, which matters if you have registered names in your own.
Apex arranges professional indemnity insurance for domain name registrars 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.
