PI insurance for new PR consultancies

Cover before the first retainer, not after

New PR consultancies rarely start from zero. There is usually a former client following you out of the agency, a contact who wants a safe pair of hands, a project that starts before the company bank account is even open. The temptation is to get billing and sort insurance when things settle. The problem is that liability starts with the first piece of advice and the first published word, not with the first invoice.

An email suggesting how a client should respond to a journalist, a draft statement issued in your name, a pitch that names a competitor: all of it is professional work someone can later complain about. If a claim arrives and no policy covers the period when the work was done, the claim lands on you personally, and a new limited company offers less protection than people assume when the allegation is professional negligence or defamation.

There is also the commercial reality: agency rosters, procurement teams and public sector clients ask for evidence of PI insurance before onboarding. Having the certificate ready converts due diligence from a delay into a formality, which matters when you are trying to close your first retainers quickly.

The retroactive date, explained once

PI insurance is written on a claims-made basis. The policy that responds to a claim is the one in force when the claim is made, not the one in force when the work was done. To stop people buying cover only when trouble is visible, every policy carries a retroactive date: work performed before that date is outside cover, permanently.

For a new consultancy, the retroactive date is normally fixed at the moment your first policy starts. Renew continuously and the date stays anchored there, so your entire trading history remains insured. Let the policy lapse, even briefly, and the next insurer may reset the date, cutting your earlier work out of cover for good.

The practical consequences are simple. Buy cover before you start advising, keep it continuous even in quiet months, and if you ever switch insurers, make sure the new policy carries your original retroactive date across. These three habits cost little and protect everything.

The defamation extension: the check that defines a PR policy

Here is the point specific to your profession. Generic consultant PI policies are built around negligent advice. PR consultancies also publish, and publication brings a different family of claims: defamation, malicious falsehood, and infringement of copyright or other rights in campaign materials. Crucially, these claims typically come from third parties, not clients, so a policy tuned only to client disputes misses them.

Before you buy, confirm the policy expressly covers libel and slander arising from your professional activities, and ask how it treats other media perils in your content. This is not an exotic add-on for a comms practice; it is the core of the risk. A quotation that is cheaper because the wording is silent on defamation is not cheaper, it is smaller.

Then build the editorial habits that keep that cover unstressed: sign-off on copy before release, substantiation on file for factual claims about competitors, licences for images and music, consent for case studies. Insurers ask about these controls on proposal forms, and they are also simply how a professional consultancy runs.

Common first-year mistakes

The first mistake is the gap: starting work uninsured, or switching cover off during a thin quarter. Both create permanent holes in your insured history, because claims-made cover only protects continuous periods behind a stable retroactive date. If money is tight, discuss payment structure with your broker rather than going bare.

The second is a lazy activities description. If your proposal form says public relations but you also do paid social, influencer campaigns, video production or event management, say so. Cover follows the described activities, and the fastest route to a coverage argument is doing work your policy does not know about.

The third is signing client contracts without reading the liability clauses. Agency agreements often contain broad indemnities and insurance schedules; some demand limits or bases of cover you have not bought. Signing first and checking later means either breaching the contract or scrambling to upgrade cover mid-term. And once you hire your first employee, remember employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement with a statutory minimum of £5m.

What a sensible day-one programme looks like

Keep it proportionate. A new PR consultancy typically needs PI with defamation cover at a limit driven by its first client contracts, public liability for meetings, shoots and events, employers' liability from the first hire, and, once client data and account access accumulate, a conversation about cyber cover. Office contents and equipment cover can matter if you carry kit to shoots and events. Beyond that, resist buying complexity you do not yet have.

On the PI limit, let your contracts lead. Look at the insurance schedules in the retainers and rosters you expect to sign in year one and treat the highest requirement as your floor, adding headroom if your work is contentious or your campaigns carry serious client spend. The limit is reviewable at every renewal, so it should grow with the practice rather than being set once and forgotten.

Finally, answer the proposal form carefully and keep copies of everything: the form, the schedule, the wording, client insurance clauses. The proposal is the foundation of the insurance contract, and a consultancy that can show exactly what it declared and what it bought is in a strong position on the day it matters.

Frequently asked questions

When should a new PR consultancy arrange PI insurance?

Before the first advice is given or the first content is published, which usually means before the first retainer is signed. That fixes your retroactive date at the very start of the practice, keeps early work insured, and means you can produce a certificate the moment a client or roster asks.

Does a new PR consultancy really need defamation cover?

Yes. Publication claims such as libel and slander are the profession's most distinctive exposure and typically come from third parties rather than clients. Confirm the policy expressly covers defamation arising from your work; a wording that is silent on it leaves the core PR risk uninsured.

What are the most common first-year insurance mistakes?

Starting work before cover begins, letting the policy lapse in quiet periods, describing your activities too narrowly on the proposal form, and signing client contracts whose insurance and indemnity clauses demand more than the policy you bought. All four are avoidable with one early conversation with a broker.

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.