HR consultants · PI cover

HR consultants PI — employment-law claim exposure

Reviewed by Matthew Bartlett, Director, Apex Insurance Brokers Limited (FCA FRN 724952) · Published 15 July 2026

HR consultants routinely give advice that can be tested in employment tribunals. PI cover needs to respond to the whole claim, not just the fee.

Where the claims come from

Advice on managing performance leading to a discrimination tribunal.
TUPE advice missing a material transferring liability.
Redundancy scoring frameworks challenged at tribunal.
Settlement agreement drafting errors.
Payroll or right-to-work compliance failures traced to HR advice.

Cover levels and market

Sole practitioners typically £500k-£1m; established consultancies £1m-£3m; larger operations £3m+.

Cover ideally extends to any Advisory activity, HR retainer work, and any recruitment sourcing conducted.

What to check in the wording

Employment-tribunal cover explicitly stated.
Defence-cost cap or in-addition-to-limit basis.
Aggregation clause treatment for cumulative advice claims.
Cyber and GDPR breach carve-outs.
Retroactive date covering earliest active advice.

Frequently asked

Are HR consultancies claim-frequent?

More than most consulting sectors — employment law is a claim-heavy space, though most claims are lower value.

Do standard PI wordings work?

Yes, provided employment-law advice is not carved out. Some cheaper wordings exclude tribunal-related work — check carefully.

What limit is typical?

£1m-£2m for most consultancies; £5m+ for those handling large corporate clients.

How does Consumer Duty apply?

Consumer Duty applies where consumer clients are advised. Most HR consultancy is B2B; consumer applicability is edge cases.

Does the CIPD membership matter for insurers?

Membership is treated as a positive proxy for competence but rarely materially discounts premium.

Should I be a CIPD member to get PI?

No. Insurers ask about qualifications but membership is not mandatory.

Speak to a specialist broker

Get a considered PI quote from Apex

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Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Firm reference number 724952. Registered in England and Wales, company number 07014570.

Professional indemnity

What might your PI premium look like?

A guideline range built from the premiums insurers have actually quoted on risks we handle. Pick your profession and enter a few details — it updates instantly.

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Annual fee income — gross, last 12 months

Limit of indemnity

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Guideline range — this is not a quote

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How these figures are produced

This guide is built from Apex's own market data: the premiums insurers have actually quoted and charged on professional indemnity risks we have handled. Each night that data is aggregated into anonymised rate bands by profession, fee income and limit of indemnity. No client information is published — a band only appears where it contains at least five separate records, and unusually high premiums are excluded so a single atypical risk cannot distort the guide.

The range shown spans the typical spread of recent market outcomes for similar risks. Individual quotes can fall outside it in either direction. Figures exclude insurance premium tax at 12%.

This calculator is not a quote and is not an offer of insurance or advice. Your actual premium depends on full underwriting of your business, including your activities, claims record and insurer appetite at the time.