How much PI cover do planning consultants need?

Why there is no standard number

Ask five planning consultants what limit they carry and you will get five different answers, and all five might be right. A sole practitioner handling householder applications and a practice advising on a strategic urban extension are exposed to very different consequences when something goes wrong, even though the work sits under the same professional label.

The temptation is to anchor on what colleagues carry or what a previous employer held. Neither tells you much. Their contracts, their clients and their project values are not yours. The useful question is not what everyone else buys but what would actually be claimed against you if a piece of your advice failed, and who would be doing the claiming.

That is why this page talks about drivers rather than recommendations. A broker who names a figure before understanding your workload is guessing. Once the drivers below are mapped out, the range you should be considering usually becomes obvious, and the conversation with your broker becomes a short one.

Start with what your contracts demand

The floor for your limit is almost always set by someone else. Consultancy appointments, framework agreements and collateral warranties routinely specify a minimum level of professional indemnity insurance, and often state whether it must be held on an each-and-every-claim basis or in the aggregate. Sign the appointment and you have made a contractual promise to carry that cover for as long as the agreement says.

Read the small print on duration too. Many appointments require the insurance to be maintained for a fixed number of years after practical completion or after your services end. That obligation survives even if the client relationship does not, and it is one of the most commonly missed clauses in consultant appointments.

If you work for local planning authorities, developers or housebuilders through frameworks, the framework documents usually set insurance requirements for every call-off. Gather your live contracts, list the stated minimums and bases of cover, and you have your starting point. The limit you buy has to clear the highest bar among them.

The development value that leans on your advice

Planning advice is unusual in that the fee rarely reflects the value at stake. A few thousand pounds of consultancy work can sit behind a site acquisition, a funding decision or a build programme worth many times more. If an application fails because a policy constraint was missed, or an appeal is lost on a point you advised on, the client's loss is measured against the development, not against your invoice.

Think about your largest current instruction. If your advice on that scheme were wrong, what would the client actually lose? Abortive design fees, wasted holding costs on land, the difference in land value with and without consent, delay to a programme with contractual penalties attached. You do not need a precise number, but you need an honest order of magnitude, because that is the scale a claim could take.

Appeals and examinations add another layer. Advice on appeal strategy, evidence to an inquiry or representations on a local plan all involve judgement calls that clients rely on when deciding whether to spend serious money. Section 106 and viability advice carries similar weight. The more your work steers investment decisions rather than just documenting them, the more the value-at-stake driver matters.

What the RTPI does and does not require

The Royal Town Planning Institute expects members to act with professional competence and to make sure clients are protected, but it does not impose a single blanket minimum PI limit on every member or practice. So if you are looking to the institute for a number, you will not find one that answers the question for you.

That puts the decision back on the shape of your own practice, which is genuinely the better place for it. A body-wide minimum would be too high for some members and dangerously low for others. What matters is that the limit you choose can be defended by reference to your contracts and your exposure, not to a rule of thumb.

If you belong to other schemes or panels, such as an approved supplier list for a public body, check their entry requirements separately. Panel and framework conditions are contractual requirements in their own right and frequently set insurance levels above anything a professional body would suggest.

Basis of cover and life after the project

Two policies with the same headline limit can behave very differently. A limit written in the aggregate is a single pot for the whole policy year; once claims exhaust it, there is nothing left. A limit on an each-and-every-claim basis restores in full for each separate claim. Contracts often specify which basis they require, and the difference matters most in a bad year, which is exactly the year you bought the policy for.

PI policies are written on a claims-made basis, meaning the policy that responds is the one in force when the claim is made, not when the work was done. Planning advice has a long tail: a defect in your advice may only surface when a development stalls or a consent is challenged, years after your involvement ended. Continuous cover, with a retroactive date reaching back to the start of your practice, is what protects that history.

The same logic applies when you retire, merge or close the practice. Run-off cover keeps a policy in force for claims made after you stop trading, and many consultant appointments expressly require it for a set period. Build run-off into your thinking now rather than discovering the obligation at the point of exit.

Frequently asked questions

Does the RTPI set a minimum PI limit for planning consultants?

No single blanket minimum limit applies to every RTPI member or practice. The institute expects members to behave professionally and protect clients, but the limit you carry is driven by your contracts, your clients' requirements and the value of the schemes relying on your advice.

Should my limit reflect my fees or the project value?

Neither on its own. Fees understate the exposure because claims are measured against the client's loss, not your invoice. Full project value usually overstates it. The realistic question is what a client could actually recover if your advice failed on your largest instruction, alongside whatever minimums your contracts already impose.

Do I still need PI cover after I stop trading?

Usually, yes. Because PI works on a claims-made basis, a claim arriving after you close the practice needs a policy in force at that time. Run-off cover provides this, and many appointments contractually require it for a set number of years after your services end.

Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 724952). This page is general information, not advice on a specific policy.