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Designers and creatives
If you design garments or collections for brands, retailers or manufacturers, yes: you need professional indemnity insurance. A rival label can say your design copies theirs, a tech pack error can leave a client with a factory run it cannot sell, and late designs can miss a season. Public liability covers none of that. If you also sell under your own label, you need product liability too, because PI usually excludes injury caused by the garments themselves.
Part of: Professional indemnity for designers
In short
Fashion designers face three main PI exposures: allegations of copying, errors in the specifications and tech packs a factory works from, and delays that miss a selling season. In the UK a garment’s shape can be protected by unregistered design right for up to 15 years, its appearance by supplementary unregistered design right for 3 years from disclosure, and a registered design for up to 25 years. Intentionally copying a registered design in the course of business is a criminal offence. Childrenswear adds product safety: cord and drawstring standards and nightwear flammability rules. PI with intellectual property cover usually protects the design work; product liability protects goods you sell.
Last reviewed 5 October 2026 by the Apex professional indemnity team.
Public liability (PL) responds to accidents: a model trips on a cable at your show, or a fitting pin injures a client. Fashion’s expensive mistakes are different. They happen on paper, in a sketch, a measurement chart or a fabric choice, and they become visible only when thousands of garments arrive from the factory.
Professional indemnity (PI) is the policy for that kind of loss. It responds when a client, or a third party such as a rival brand, alleges that your professional work fell below the standard of a competent designer and cost them money, and it pays for your defence. For freelance designers, design consultancies and studios working for retailers and brands, it is usually the core policy.
Two points to settle when you buy it:
These examples are illustrative and invented. None is a real claim or a real brand, but each mirrors how disputes in the trade begin.
Each case turns on whether you did what a competent fashion designer would have done: checked the brief, the measurements, the standard or the composition before the factory did the rest.
Copying disputes in fashion are argued through UK design law, and specification disputes through product safety and labelling law.
| Right or rule | What it says | Why it matters to your PI |
|---|---|---|
| UK unregistered design right | Protects the shape and configuration of a 3-dimensional design automatically, for whichever is shorter of 15 years after the end of the year the design was created and 10 years after the end of the year it first went on sale. | A garment’s cut and construction can be protected without registration, so “it wasn’t registered” is no defence. |
| Supplementary unregistered design right | Protects a product’s appearance in the UK, including shape, colours, texture, materials and ornamentation, for 3 years from the date it is made public. | This season’s designs from other labels are likely to be protected while you are referencing them. |
| Registered designs | Registration lasts 5 years and can be renewed up to a maximum of 25 years. | Long-lived protection for signature pieces, and the basis of the criminal offence below. |
| Registered Designs Act 1949, s.35ZA | It is an offence, in the course of a business, to intentionally copy a registered design so as to make a product exactly to it, or differing only in immaterial details, knowing or having reason to believe it is registered. | PI will not usually respond to deliberate copying or to criminal proceedings. |
| Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, s.215 | The designer is the first owner of design right unless the design is created in the course of employment. | If you are freelance, design right in commissioned work starts with you unless the contract transfers it, which shapes who can sue whom. |
| Textile Products (Labelling and Fibre Composition) Regulations 2012 | Textile products must carry a label showing fibre content, using permitted fibre names. Non-textile animal parts must be declared. | Wrong composition or fur information in a tech pack can force a relabel or withdrawal. |
When a brief asks you to reference a competitor, keep your design development: dated sketches, mood boards and fabric choices. GOV.UK suggests signed and dated copies of design drawings as one way to prove when a design was created, and the same records are your strongest defence against a copying allegation.
| Usually covered by PI | Often excluded or limited | Needs a different policy |
|---|---|---|
| Claims that your design infringes another label’s design right or copyright, where the policy includes IP cover | Deliberate or knowing copying | Injury or damage caused by garments you sell under your own label (product liability) |
| Client losses from errors in tech packs, size charts or fabric specifications | The cost of recalling products, which wordings often exclude or limit | The cost of a recall itself (product recall cover) |
| Late delivery of designs that causes a client loss, where negligence is alleged | Promises that garments will sell, or will be fit for any purpose beyond reasonable skill and care | Samples or stock lost or damaged in transit (goods in transit) |
| Breach of confidence, for example a client’s collection shared before launch | Fines, and the costs of defending criminal proceedings | Injury at a show, fitting or event (public liability) |
| Defence costs, including expert evidence on design and garment technology | Work done before your retroactive date | Theft of your studio equipment or samples (contents cover) |
All cover depends on the wording and on the insurer agreeing to the risk. If you design childrenswear, nightwear or protective clothing, tell the insurer: these carry more safety risk than general womenswear or menswear.
Most fashion PI claims are about money. Childrenswear and nightwear are where a design choice can also hurt someone, and where a single detail can trigger a recall of a whole line.
BS EN 14682 covers cords and drawstrings on clothing for children up to 14. As summarised in a risk assessment published by the Office for Product Safety and Standards, garments for young children must not have drawstrings or functional cords in the head, neck or upper chest area, and decorative cords are not permitted on the hood or at the back of the neck. That is a design decision, made at the sketch stage.
Under the Nightwear (Safety) Regulations 1985, as explained by Trading Standards, children’s nightwear (designed for under-13s, within set size limits) must meet the flammability requirements of BS 5722, with exceptions including pyjamas and babies’ garments. Other nightwear, including adults’, must be labelled to show whether it meets those requirements, for example “KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE” in red. Trading Standards also points to BS EN 14878 for children’s nightwear under 14, so that suppliers meet the General Product Safety Regulations 2005.
The GPSR place the duty to supply only safe products on producers. Their definition of a producer is wide: the manufacturer, anyone who puts their name or mark on the product, and other professionals in the supply chain insofar as their activities may affect the safety properties of a product. If your design creates the hazard, expect the retailer to look to you. PI may respond to a negligence claim for the client’s losses, subject to the terms, but recall costs and injury claims usually belong to other policies, so check how your cover fits together before you take on childrenswear.
No law sets a PI limit for fashion designers. Retailers and brands set it in their supplier or consultancy terms, and some will want to see a certificate before they release a brief. Size your limit on the largest production run your designs feed into, not your fee: a grading error or a copying claim is measured against the client’s stock, markdowns and legal costs.
PI is claims-made, so it pays claims made while the policy is live. Design right lasts for years and a copying claim can arrive well after the season ends, often when a rival notices a reorder. If you stop freelancing, go in-house or close your studio, keep run-off cover for your past designs. See run-off cover explained, and for the overlap with product cover, professional indemnity vs product liability.
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 fashion designers, 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.
If you design for other businesses, yes. Brands and retailers rely on your designs, specifications and timing, and an error or a copying allegation can cost them a production run or a season. PI is the policy that answers those claims and funds your defence, within its terms. Check that it extends to intellectual property infringement, the allegation fashion designers most often face.
No. No law requires fashion designers to hold PI. In practice retailers, brands and manufacturers often write it into supplier or consultancy terms, and may ask for a certificate showing the limit before they release a brief. If you sell your own label, retailers stocking it may ask for product liability as well.
Normally yes, where the wording extends to infringement of design rights and copyright: the insurer handles the defence and meets any settlement or award, subject to the terms. Deliberate copying is commonly excluded, and intentionally copying a registered design in business is a criminal offence, so PI is no answer to that. Dated sketches and development records are the most useful protection you have.
Under the CDPA the designer is the first owner of UK design right unless the design is created in the course of employment, so a freelancer owns it unless the contract assigns it. Many brands ask for an assignment, which is normal, but check what warranties come with it and whether they go beyond what your PI covers.
Not the recall itself. The cost of recalling and replacing garments usually needs product recall cover, and many PI wordings exclude or limit recall-related losses. If a client says your negligent design or specification caused the recall and claims its losses from you, PI may respond to that claim, subject to the policy terms.
If you sell finished garments under your own label, yes. Product liability covers injury or property damage caused by the products you supply, which PI usually excludes. The General Product Safety Regulations 2005 treat anyone who puts their name or mark on a product as a producer, so an own-label designer carries producer duties.
Apex arranges professional indemnity insurance for fashion designers 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.
