Professional indemnity broker · Management consultants · UK

Professional indemnity insurance broker for management consultants

Professional indemnity for management, strategy, operations, HR and change consultancies — and for the interim managers and boutique firms whose clients’ master services agreements have just asked for more than they hold.

Part of: Professional indemnity insurance at Apex

Who this page is for

• Management, strategy, operations, HR, change and transformation consultancies, from sole practitioners to mid-market firms.
• Interim managers and fractional executives who also need to think about directors’ and officers’ exposure.
• Firms bidding on Crown Commercial Service frameworks or corporate MSAs that specify £5m or £10m PI and cyber.
• Financial-services consultancies whose work touches regulated activity and attracts higher limits.
• Consultancies that bought a generic online policy and have since won clients who read the schedule.

What consultants’ PI has to do

A consultancy claim is a client saying your advice, your project management or your deliverable cost them money: a transformation that overran, a restructuring with an unforeseen liability, a recommendation that was acted on and went wrong. The policy has to cover negligence and, where the contract allows, breach of contract, and it has to be big enough for the largest engagement, not the average.

There is no statutory requirement for a UK management consultancy to hold PI in the way the SRA requires it of solicitors or ICAEW of accountants. Master services agreements with corporate and financial-services clients routinely specify a minimum PI limit as a condition of doing business, and public-sector frameworks set minimums at lot level.

• MSA review. Limits, basis of cover, indemnity clauses and jurisdiction all need checking against the policy before signature.
• PI and cyber together. Consultants hold client data; a breach is a first-party cyber loss and a third-party claim at once. Placing both with a plan avoids the gap.
• Interim and board roles can take you outside PI and into D&O territory. Declare them.
• Financial-services advisory attracts higher limits and closer questions; present it fully.

What limit consultancies actually need

As a working guide: £1m is a sensible floor for a sole practitioner or very small consultancy; £2m is often required by mid-market clients and is a common renewal limit for smaller partnerships; £5m is frequently specified by larger corporate MSAs and by many Crown Commercial Service framework lots, including parts of MCF4; £10m and above is typical for FTSE-100 work and financial-services advisory where the consultancy work touches regulated activity. Individual call-offs can raise a framework’s minimum further.

The cheapest way to meet a one-off £10m requirement is often an excess layer for that contract, not a permanent increase. Tell us before you sign and we will price it.

How Apex places professional indemnity for management consultants

• A short fact-find, not a 40-question form. We ask about your work as management consultancies and professional-services firms: what you do, who for, fee income, staff, contracts, claims and anything unusual.
• A written presentation to insurers. Under the Insurance Act 2015 you have a duty of fair presentation. We help you meet it — and a well-presented risk gets better terms than a bare proposal form.
• Quotes set out to compare. Usually three or four, with limits, excesses, retroactive dates, exclusions and premium side by side, and our recommendation in plain English.
• No gap in cover. If you are moving from another broker, insurer or scheme, we put the new policy in place before the old one lapses and check the retroactive date protects your past work.
• The same person afterwards. Mid-term changes, contract queries, certificates for clients, circumstance notifications and next year’s renewal all go through your named broker.

Why management consultants move their PI to Apex

• Owned by its directors, not for sale. No consolidator, no private-equity owner, no external shareholders — and we have declined approaches to buy the firm. Read the Apex Independence Charter.
• Independent, not tied. No single-insurer scheme, no in-house policy, no placement quotas — the recommendation is the one that fits, not the one we are paid to push.
• Over 30 markets, including Lloyd’s. Specialist UK PI insurers and Lloyd’s syndicates via wholesale, so a risk that one underwriter dislikes can still be placed properly with another.
• Usually three or four competing quotes, laid out side by side — limit, excess, retroactive date, exclusions and premium — with a plain-language note on the trade-offs.
• The stay-put letter. If your existing cover is right, we say so in writing, free and without obligation. How the stay-put letter works.
• A named broker all year. The person who places your cover is the person who picks up the phone at renewal, on a mid-term change, or when a letter of claim lands.
• Director-level attention on claims. We help you notify circumstances early and in the right form, stay involved once the insurer’s panel solicitors are appointed, and tell you plainly where you stand.
• Directly authorised by the FCA since 2016, not an appointed representative trading under someone else’s permissions.

When it is worth getting a second quote

• You have outgrown a professional-body or adviser-network scheme, or an online-only policy, and nobody has re-marketed your risk in years.
• A client, lender, framework or regulator now requires a higher limit, a different basis of cover, or evidence your existing broker cannot produce quickly.
• Your insurer has non-renewed, withdrawn from your profession, or imposed an exclusion you were not warned about.
• Your renewal rose sharply with no explanation, or the person who knew your firm has left, retired, or been absorbed into a consolidator.
• You have a claim, a circumstance, a CCJ or something else non-standard, and your current arrangement treats it as a tick-box decline.
• Your broker has been bought by a consolidator or a global broker and the independence you chose them for has gone.

None of these needs a falling-out with your current broker. Send us the renewal, we tell you plainly whether you are well placed. If you are, we say so. How switching broker works without a gap in cover →

When we are not the right broker

• You want the cheapest possible policy bought online in five minutes with no conversation. An online-only product may suit you better, and we would rather say so than waste your time.
• Your regulator or professional body requires you to use one specific scheme with no alternative. That is rare, but where it applies we will tell you.
• You are outside the UK, or your firm is effectively a US-domiciled business with a UK office.

Related guides

• Get a professional indemnity insurance quote
• Best professional indemnity insurance in the UK: how to choose
• Management consultants professional indemnity insurance — the full UK guide
• How much professional indemnity insurance do you need?
• What professional indemnity insurance costs, and what drives the premium
• Professional indemnity insurance at Apex
• When to switch business insurance broker
• Non-standard professional indemnity: CCJs, claims, declines, adverse credit
• The Apex Independence Charter: owned by its directors, not for sale
• PI minimum limit calculator: what your regulator requires
• UK PI brokers: who has been bought, and who is still independent
• A contract requires higher insurance limits — what to do
• Is cyber insurance a legal requirement in the UK?
• Insurance for start-ups and scale-ups

Frequently asked

Apex 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 about professional indemnity insurance, not advice on your individual circumstances, and it does not guarantee that cover will be available or on what terms.