Designer brief: foreword sits on page 2, flush-left body, headshot of Matt Bartlett top-right at 35mm x 35mm, monochrome.
This is the first edition of the State of UK PI annual series. We wrote it for the directors, finance leads, risk managers and compliance officers at UK professional services firms who buy Professional Indemnity insurance once a year, often without much warning of what is changing in the market behind the renewal quote.
2026 is a year of partial normalisation. After the hard market that ran through 2019 to 2023, capacity has returned in many sectors but not all. The Building Safety Act 2022 has matured into a more predictable, if not comfortable, regime. Consumer Duty has entered its second year of enforcement. The Financial Ombudsman Service award limit has moved again. Cyber risk has continued its slow merger with PI exposure. And the use of AI in advice, design and code is now a notification topic, not a theoretical one.
Our intention with this report is simple: to put the public data into one place, set it alongside what we see at renewal, and let readers draw their own conclusions. There is no advice in these pages. Where we offer a view, we say so.
— Matt Bartlett, Director, Apex Insurance Brokers Ltd
Designer brief: half-page boxed summary on page 3, two columns, light-tone fill, four icons across the top representing capacity, rate, claims, regulator.
Capacity. Broader across most professions than in any year since 2018. Solicitors and construction-adjacent disciplines remain the exceptions. New Lloyd’s syndicate capacity and continued MGA launches have eased competition for mid-market risks.
Rate. Single-digit reductions reported across most sectors by major brokers and Lloyd’s-aligned market commentary. Construction-adjacent professions and high-limit firms continue to see flat-to-rising terms.
Claims. Notification volumes remain elevated against pre-pandemic baselines, with cladding-tail, conveyancing and audit themes dominant. AI-related notifications are emerging but still a small share of overall volume.
Regulator. FCA Consumer Duty supervision now in its second cycle. FRC enforcement against audit firms continues at elevated levels. SRA, RICS, ARB and ICAEW have all published thematic reviews in the last twelve months that bear on PI exposure.
UK PI capacity has materially widened in 2026, but the recovery is sector-specific.
Public commentary from Lloyd’s, the ABI and major broker market reports through late 2025 and early 2026 points to a meaningfully softer Professional Indemnity market for most disciplines. New Lloyd’s syndicate capacity, the continued growth of MGA-fronted capacity, and the re-entry of carriers that pulled back during 2020-2022 have all contributed. For lower-hazard professions — IFAs outside DB transfer history, IT consultancies, design agencies, smaller accountancy firms — quote competition has returned and primary rate movement is typically reported in single-digit reductions year-on-year. The exceptions sit where they have sat since 2018: solicitors with conveyancing exposure, audit firms with listed clients, and any construction-adjacent discipline carrying cladding or higher-risk-building work. There, capacity is steadier and terms remain firm.
Four years on, the regulatory architecture is settled — the run-off exposure is not.
By 2026 the principal designer and principal contractor duties under the Building Safety Act 2022 are familiar territory for architects, engineers and surveyors active in higher-risk buildings. The extended limitation period — up to 30 years retrospective for Defective Premises Act claims as amended by section 135 of the BSA — continues to drive insurer caution at the high end of the construction-adjacent market. Policy wordings have largely settled around fire safety and cladding exclusions, with carve-backs increasingly available for firms able to evidence post-2022 design-review processes. The cost rationale is understandable; the burden on smaller practices buying PI is real. Capacity for higher-risk-building work is workable but neither cheap nor wide.
The annual CPI-linked uplift to the Financial Ombudsman Service award limit has practical consequences at the small end of the market.
The FOS award limit has continued its annual CPI-indexed uplift since the FCA introduced the mechanism. For IFAs, mortgage intermediaries, smaller accountancy firms and any FCA-authorised professional services firm with retail customers, the limit determines the floor of PI cover that needs to be carried per claim against a single complainant. Each year’s uplift adds a small but accumulating layer to required minimum limits. Insurers price the uplift in; firms feel it as a slow rate creep even in a softening market. Public-source guidance on the current limit sits on the FCA and FOS websites. The pattern matters more than the precise figure: limits are not flat year-on-year, and renewal budgeting needs to reflect that.
The FCA’s Consumer Duty entered its second supervisory cycle in 2025 — notification themes are emerging.
Consumer Duty came into force for new and existing products in July 2023, with closed products following in July 2024. Through 2025 the FCA published its first round of multi-firm reviews and Dear CEO letters covering price and value, consumer understanding and consumer support. By 2026 the second cycle is in progress and firms are increasingly seeing internal compliance findings translate into PI notifications, particularly where remediation programmes uncover historical advice or product-design issues. For IFAs, mortgage brokers and consumer-facing professional firms, the volume of notifications driven by Consumer Duty reviews is now a measurable share of insurer reporting. Underwriters are asking about Consumer Duty governance at renewal as a matter of course.
From theoretical exposure to actual claim notifications in under two years.
Through 2024 and 2025 underwriters were asking about AI use at renewal as a future-facing question. By 2026 the question is operational. We are aware from market commentary, ICO enforcement publications and trade press coverage of notifications involving large language model output cited in client advice, generative design tools producing non-compliant specifications, and code-assist tool output reaching production without adequate human review. Insurer responses vary: most carriers are not excluding AI exposure outright but are asking detailed proposal-form questions on governance, human-in-the-loop processes and version control. The ICO has continued to publish guidance on AI under existing UK GDPR. Firms with no documented AI use policy are increasingly noting it during proposal-form completion.
Public remediation data and ongoing claims activity confirm the tail extends well into the late 2020s.
UK Government remediation data published through 2025 shows continued progress on identified higher-risk buildings, but the pipeline of buildings still in remediation, in dispute, or yet to be identified means the claims tail for architects, engineers, surveyors and contractors involved in pre-2018 work remains live. Section 135 of the Building Safety Act 2022 extended the Defective Premises Act limitation period to 30 years retrospective for the worst categories, and to 15 years prospective. The practical effect for PI is that historic work continues to surface as claims more than two decades after completion. Insurers price the tail into renewal terms for construction-adjacent firms; capacity for the layer remains available but selective.
Public SRA enforcement and Compensation Fund commentary point to conveyancing as the persistent claim theme.
The SRA’s published enforcement decisions, Compensation Fund reports and thematic reviews through 2024 and 2025 continue to identify conveyancing — particularly residential conveyancing involving leasehold, new-build, and identity-fraud scenarios — as the dominant claim driver in the solicitors’ PI market. The Participating Insurers’ Agreement and the minimum terms and conditions of the SRA’s compulsory cover regime mean primary capacity remains regulated, but excess-layer pricing and aggregation language are where the market expresses its view. Firms with conveyancing weight in their fee mix continue to see firmer renewal terms than litigation-only or commercial-only practices. The SRA’s thematic guidance on identity verification and source-of-funds remains the cited reference point for underwriters.
FRC enforcement activity through 2024-2025 has kept audit-firm PI in a structurally firmer position.
The Financial Reporting Council has continued to publish enforcement decisions against audit firms — including substantial financial sanctions — through 2024 and 2025, with cases tied to historic audits of large listed and AIM-quoted companies. The FRC’s annual enforcement review documents the volume and disposition of cases. For PI insurers writing audit-firm exposure, this enforcement pattern translates into firmer pricing for firms with listed-company audit exposure and tighter underwriting on PIE (Public Interest Entity) audit work. Smaller firms outside the Big Six and outside listed audit exposure have seen a more typical softening pattern. The split in the audit-firm PI market is now structural rather than cyclical.
Lloyd’s market bulletins and major carrier wording reviews have continued to push silent-cyber clarification through 2025.
Following the Lloyd’s market bulletins on cyber exclusion clarity originally issued in 2019 and refreshed since, PI wordings across the Lloyd’s and company markets have continued to either affirm or exclude cyber-related losses explicitly rather than leaving the position silent. The practical effect for professional services firms is that the boundary between a PI claim arising from professional negligence with a cyber root cause, and a cyber claim arising from a network incident, now needs to be navigated at the wording level. Firms carrying both PI and standalone cyber cover are increasingly being asked to map the two policies together. The ICO’s public enforcement data on personal data breaches remains a reference point for cyber exposure quantum.
Where competition for risk is most evident in 2026.
Several professional-services sectors are seeing clearly competitive PI renewals in 2026. Public broker commentary and our own renewal observations point to: IFAs without DB transfer or SIPP-introducer history; mid-sized accountancy firms without listed audit exposure; IT consultancies and software houses without safety-critical or financial-services-platform work; design and creative agencies; engineering consultancies in lower-hazard disciplines; and estate agency PI for sales-only firms without lettings client-money exposure. Carriers in these segments are competing on price, limits, and excess level. The pattern is consistent with a market that has digested the 2019-2023 reset and is now selectively re-deploying capacity into the cleaner end of the book.
Three priority actions for senior decision-makers at UK professional services firms ahead of the 2026 renewal cycle.
The market has softened in most sectors, but the firms securing the strongest terms in 2026 are those presenting a clean, complete, well-evidenced submission to underwriters with time for negotiation. Late submissions and incomplete proposal forms continue to attract conservative pricing even in softening conditions. Build a renewal calendar that puts proposal-form completion at T-90, broker submission at T-60, quote review at T-30, and bind at T-7. The discipline costs nothing and consistently produces better outcomes.
By the 2026 renewal cycle, proposal forms across most PI markets include AI-use questions. Firms with a written AI-use policy, named human-review checkpoints, and a version-control record for AI-assisted client deliverables will answer those questions confidently. Firms without that documentation will answer cautiously, and underwriters will price accordingly. The policy does not need to be long. It needs to exist, to be dated, and to be capable of evidence at audit. This is a low-cost, high-leverage piece of preparation.
Silent-cyber clarification has changed the boundary between PI and standalone cyber cover. Firms carrying both policies should review the two wordings side by side, identify the overlap and any gap, and confirm with their broker which policy responds to which scenario. A documented mapping conversation with both insurers, recorded in writing, reduces dispute risk if a notification arrives. This is a 60-minute exercise that pays back in clarity at claim time.
The full State of UK PI 2026 report extends each of the findings above with sector-by-sector data, public-source citations, regulator-by-regulator commentary, and a 2027 outlook section. It is available to download at apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk/state-of-uk-pi-2026/.
Is this report advice? No. It is research and market commentary. Specific decisions should be taken with the benefit of advice from a regulated broker or adviser.
Is this a financial promotion? No. It is a research publication. It does not promote any specific insurance product, contract or arrangement.
How was it compiled? From public-source data published by the FCA, FOS, FSCS, ABI, Lloyd’s, ICO, RICS, ARB, SRA, ICAEW, ACCA, FRC and UK Government, combined with brokerage market observations expressed only as ranges and themes.
How do I get the full report? Download it at apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk/state-of-uk-pi-2026/. An email address is required so we can notify you of the 2027 edition; we will not pass it on.
How do I get in touch with Apex? Email matthew.bartlett@apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk or visit apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk.
Designer brief: footer block on the final page, two-column layout, Apex monogram top-left, contact details right, disclaimer running across the full width below.
Apex Insurance Brokers Ltd. Bristol, United Kingdom. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA Firm Reference Number 724952. Registered in England and Wales, Companies House registered number 07014570. Website: apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk.
This document is a research publication. It is not advice, not a recommendation, and not a financial promotion. It does not promote any specific insurance product, contract or arrangement. All figures referenced are drawn from publicly available sources at the time of publication; readers should refer to the cited regulators and bodies for the most current data. Apex Insurance Brokers Ltd accepts no liability for decisions taken on the basis of this document without separate advice.
Apex Insurance Brokers serves UK professional services firms and commercial businesses. Call 0117 325 0027, email hello@apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk, or request a quotation.
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