Architects · Building Safety Act

Professional indemnity for architects: fire safety and the Building Safety Act

The Building Safety Act era has changed professional indemnity for architects more than for almost any other profession — a far longer liability tail, a new Principal Designer duty, and a PI market that has pulled back on fire-safety and cladding cover. This page sets out what has changed and how to make your cover match the work, and the statutory duties, you actually take on.

Part of: Professional indemnity at Apex

In short

Architects’ professional indemnity has been reshaped by the Building Safety Act 2022 and the post-Grenfell market. The Act extended the limitation period for Defective Premises Act claims to 30 years for work completed before 28 June 2022 and 15 years after, so a design claim can surface decades later; it introduced the Building Regulations Principal Designer dutyholder role (in force 1 October 2023, distinct from the CDM 2015 role and applying to most building work, not only higher-risk buildings); and PI insurers have widely restricted fire-safety and cladding cover, precisely where architects’ exposure is greatest. On design-and-build, PI covers reasonable skill and care and excludes fitness for purpose, yet contracts routinely try to pass that absolute standard down — an uninsured liability. Architects have no single statutory minimum limit; it is set by your contracts. The priority is matching the wording, the limit, the exclusions and the statutory duties to the work you actually do.

Who this page is for

This page is for architects and architectural practices — sole practitioners, RIBA Chartered Practices and larger studios — particularly those working on design-and-build projects, specifying external-wall and other fire-critical elements, or taking on the new Building Regulations Principal Designer role.

Whether you lead a scheme from the first RIBA work stage or are novated to a contractor part-way through, the Building Safety Act era has changed an architect’s professional indemnity exposure — in some cases more than any other profession. This page sets out what has changed, and how to make your cover match the work and the duties you actually take on.

The Building Safety Act has changed architects’ PI

More than any recent reform, the Building Safety Act 2022 and the wider post-Grenfell regime have reshaped what architects are liable for and what insurers will cover. Three shifts matter most, and the rest of this page works through each.

A far longer tail. The Act extended the time in which you can be sued for defective design (covered below), so claims can now surface decades after completion.
A new statutory role. The Building Regulations Principal Designer duty puts named responsibility for design compliance on a dutyholder — often the architect.
A harder insurance market. Fire-safety and cladding exclusions are now widespread, precisely where an architect’s exposure is greatest.

None of this means architects are uninsurable. It means the wording, the limit and the duties you sign up to need checking with far more care than a renewal that simply rolls over last year’s policy.

The Building Regulations Principal Designer role

Since 1 October 2023, building work to which the Building Regulations apply must have a Building Regulations Principal Designer — a dutyholder responsible for planning, managing and monitoring the design work during the design stage so that, if built as designed, the project would comply with the Building Regulations. The transition to the new regime ran to 6 April 2024.

This is a different role from the long-standing CDM 2015 Principal Designer, which deals with health and safety in the pre-construction phase. One practice can hold both, but they are separate statutory appointments with separate duties, and — importantly — both apply to most projects under the Building Regulations, not only higher-risk buildings. The Building Regulations Principal Designer must be competent: they must have the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours to carry out the role.

The professional indemnity question is a live one. Taking on the Principal Designer role adds statutory duties to your appointment, and insurer wordings vary in how clearly they respond to it. Before you accept an appointment that names you as Principal Designer — for either role — it is worth confirming that your policy covers the duties that come with it. A broker who knows the wordings checks this before you sign, rather than after a claim.

Fire safety, cladding and the external wall

This is the single biggest professional indemnity issue in the profession. Architects who specify, detail or sign off external-wall build-ups, insulation, fire stopping and other fire-critical elements carry acute liability, and since Grenfell the PI market has responded by widely excluding or restricting fire-safety and cladding cover — sometimes a blanket exclusion, sometimes a sub-limit or a defined carve-back.

Two things make this exposure unusually sharp for architects. First, the liability is long: the Building Safety Act 2022 extended the limitation period for claims under the Defective Premises Act 1972 to 30 years for work completed before 28 June 2022, and 15 years for work after it, so a cladding or fire-safety claim can arrive long after the project closed. Second, the cover that would meet such a claim is exactly the cover insurers have pulled back. The practical answer is to read the fire-safety and cladding wording in your policy line by line, understand what is and is not covered, and have a broker market the risk properly rather than accept the first restricted quote. See our note on the section 135 limitation extension.

The fitness-for-purpose trap on design-and-build

On design-and-build projects the commercial risk shifts, and one contractual point decides whether your cover will respond at all. A standard PI policy covers your liability for failing to exercise reasonable skill and care — the ordinary professional standard. It does not cover a fitness-for-purpose obligation: an absolute promise that the finished building will achieve a particular result, however carefully you worked.

Design-and-build contracts frequently impose fitness for purpose on the contractor, and the contractor’s sub-consultancy agreements and collateral warranties then try to pass that absolute standard down to the architect. Sign up to it and you have taken on a liability your insurer will not meet.

Reasonable skill and care	Fitness for purpose
The ordinary professional standard: did you work as a competent architect would?	An absolute result: the building must achieve the stated purpose, full stop.
What your PI policy is built to cover.	Routinely excluded by PI policies — an uninsured liability.
The right standard for your appointment and warranties.	To be resisted, capped or removed before you sign.

The answer is not to refuse design-and-build work; it is to keep your appointment, warranties and design obligations limited to reasonable skill and care, so what you promise matches what your policy will pay.

Novation, the lost contract-administrator role and scope gaps

Design-and-build usually begins with the employer appointing the architect to develop the design, then novating the appointment across to the contractor once the building contract is let. Two PI issues follow.

You often lose the contract-administrator and inspection role. Once novated, the architect typically no longer administers the contract or inspects the works on the employer’s behalf, and the design-responsibility matrix can leave gaps — particularly over who develops the contractor’s design and who checks it. Unclear scope is a common source of claims.

The novation deed can widen your liability. Many deeds deem the architect to have acted for the contractor from the outset. Check that the deed does not commit you beyond reasonable skill and care, that your retroactive date covers the pre-novation work, and that you understand which duties you still owe the original employer. Add a “no greater liability” clause to collateral warranties, and a net contribution clause so you are liable only for your fair share rather than jointly and severally for the whole of a multi-party loss.

Claims-made cover, retroactive dates and run-off

Professional indemnity is written on a claims-made basis: the policy that responds is the one in force when a claim is made or a circumstance is notified, not the policy you held when you did the work. With the Building Safety Act’s extended limitation periods, this matters more for architects than almost anyone.

Your retroactive date must reach back over all your past design. A retroactive date that cuts off part of your history leaves those projects uninsured.
Avoid gaps in cover. A lapse can strand past work with no policy to respond.
Run-off is essential when a practice closes or a principal retires. A traditional six-year run-off now covers only a fraction of the window in which an architect can be pursued for historic design — so run-off needs sizing against the real tail, not a habit.

The limit and cover an architect needs

Architects have no single statutory minimum PI limit. The ARB Architects Code requires you to hold adequate and appropriate professional indemnity cover, and RIBA Chartered Practices must maintain PI, but neither fixes a single binding figure the way the RICS or SRA rules do. The limit you need is driven by your contracts. Three things set it:

Your appointments and warranties. These commonly specify a required PI limit, and yours must meet the highest figure across every live project, on the each-claim or aggregate basis the contract demands.
The fire-safety and cladding position. Check whether the policy excludes or restricts these, because an exclusion can remove exactly the cover you most need.
The Principal Designer duties. If you have taken on the role, confirm the policy responds to it.

Matching the limit, the basis, the exclusions and the statutory duties to the work you actually do — rather than renewing last year’s policy unexamined — is the whole of getting an architect’s PI right in the Building Safety Act era.

How Apex places professional indemnity for architects

A short fact-find, not a 40-question form. We ask about your work as architects: 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 architects 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

It is worth asking us to re-market your cover when:

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.

When we are not the right broker

We would rather tell you plainly than waste your time. We are probably not for you if:

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

Frequently asked

Does the Building Safety Act affect architects’ PI?

Significantly. It extended the limitation period for Defective Premises Act claims to 30 years for work completed before 28 June 2022 and 15 years for work after it, so claims can surface decades later; it introduced the Building Regulations Principal Designer dutyholder role; and the post-Grenfell market has widely restricted fire-safety and cladding cover. Between them, these change the limit, the wording and the run-off an architect needs.

Is the Building Regulations Principal Designer role covered by my PI?

Check before you accept it. Taking on the role adds statutory duties to your appointment, and insurer wordings vary in how clearly they respond to it. Confirm with your broker that your policy covers the Principal Designer duties — for both the Building Regulations and CDM roles — before you sign an appointment that names you.

What is the difference between the CDM and Building Regulations Principal Designer?

The CDM 2015 Principal Designer is responsible for health and safety in the pre-construction phase. The Building Regulations Principal Designer, in force since 1 October 2023, is responsible for planning, managing and monitoring design work so the project complies with the Building Regulations. They are separate statutory roles, both applying to most projects under the Building Regulations, not only higher-risk buildings.

Can architects still get cladding and fire-safety PI cover?

Often only in a restricted form. Since Grenfell many PI insurers apply fire-safety and cladding exclusions, sometimes a blanket exclusion and sometimes a sub-limit or carve-back. If your work touches external-wall systems or other fire-critical elements, the wording needs checking closely, and a broker can market the risk rather than leave you with the first restricted quote.

Does my PI cover a fitness-for-purpose obligation on design-and-build?

No. PI covers your liability for failing to exercise reasonable skill and care and routinely excludes fitness for purpose — an absolute promise that the works will achieve a result. If your appointment or a collateral warranty imposes fitness for purpose, that liability is uninsured, so design obligations should be limited to reasonable skill and care before you sign.

I am being novated to the contractor — what should I check?

Check that the novation deed does not deem you to have owed the contractor more than reasonable skill and care, that your retroactive date covers the pre-novation design, and that the scope is clear now you may no longer administer the contract or inspect the works. A broker reads the deed alongside your PI wording.

What PI limit does an architect need?

There is no single statutory minimum for architects. The ARB Code requires adequate and appropriate cover and RIBA Chartered Practices must hold PI, but the figure is set by your contracts and must meet the highest limit required across your live projects, on the basis those contracts demand.

How far back does my cover need to reach, and do I need run-off?

Because PI is claims-made, the policy that responds is the one in force when a claim is made, not when you did the work, so your retroactive date must cover all your past design and you should avoid any gap. Run-off is essential when a practice closes or a principal retires — and with the Building Safety Act’s longer limitation periods, a six-year run-off now covers only a fraction of the exposure.

Can you help if I have had a claim or been declined?

Yes. Our Non-Standard PI Desk handles claims, circumstances, declinatures and other difficult cases, to a published standard of a straight answer within five working days of our having the documents we ask for. Being open about the history is what lets us present it properly to an insurer with appetite for it.

Get your practice’s PI matched to the work you actually do

Send us your appointments, any Principal Designer role and your current schedule, and a named broker will check the fire-safety and cladding wording, the fitness-for-purpose and novation points, and whether your cover responds to the Building Safety Act duties you have taken on — usually three or four competing quotes, compared like for like. Or call 0117 325 0027.

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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.