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Highways and traffic
Yes, traffic consultants need professional indemnity insurance if they model, design, audit or advise. Developers, councils and contractors rely on your capacity models, signal and temporary traffic management designs, road safety audits and traffic orders to win consent and build safely. When one of those is wrong, the loss is usually financial: redesign, delay, a quashed order or a stalled planning application. Public liability is not written for that. PI covers your liability for negligent professional work, subject to the policy terms.
Part of: Engineers’ professional indemnity insurance
In short
Traffic consultants carry design and advice risk on almost every commission. On motorways and all-purpose trunk roads, DMRB GG 119 (version 2.0.1, published April 2025) requires road safety audit at four stages, by a team independent of the scheme, with at least one member holding a certificate of competency. DfT Circular 01/2022 says developers changing the strategic road network should prepare a preliminary design and Stage 1 audit before applying for planning permission. A permanent traffic regulation order can be challenged in the High Court within six weeks of being made. No law requires traffic consultants to hold PI; clients set the limit in appointments.
Last reviewed 5 October 2026 by the Apex professional indemnity team.
Public liability (PL) insurance pays for accidental injury and property damage. If a survey team’s pneumatic tube trips a cyclist, that is a PL claim. Most of the money at risk in traffic consultancy sits elsewhere: in models, drawings and reports that other people use to make expensive decisions.
A developer buys land on the strength of your access appraisal. A council commits to a signal scheme because your model shows shorter queues. A contractor sets out a lane closure exactly as your drawing shows. If your work is wrong, the loss is redesign, abortive works, delay or a refused consent. Nothing was damaged by accident, so PL is not designed to respond. Professional indemnity (PI) insurance usually covers your legal liability for loss caused by negligence in your professional work, and the cost of defending the allegation.
PI exposure comes from four kinds of work:
If a collision is blamed on your design or audit, check which of your policies answers the injury claim. Some PI wordings cover it; others leave it to PL.
The scenarios below are illustrative. They show the kinds of allegation traffic consultants face, not real claims or outcomes.
Each turns on data, assumptions, design or procedure: professional work, which is what PI is for.
An expert judging your work will compare it with the standard, guidance or procedure that applied. These come up most often.
| Standard or rule | What it says | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| DMRB GG 119, Road safety audit (version 2.0.1, National Highways) | Road safety audit applies to highway schemes on motorways and all-purpose trunk roads, including works under agreement arising from developments, at four stages: completion of preliminary design, of detailed design and of construction, then post-opening monitoring. | On the strategic network, your audit process and team will be compared with it clause by clause. |
| DfT Circular 01/2022, paragraph 25 | The DMRB sets the requirements for access, design and audit that development proposals must meet. Developers should prepare a preliminary design and Stage 1 road safety audit before applying for planning permission. | Development access to the strategic road network is designed and audited before consent is sought. |
| Traffic Signs Manual, Chapter 8 Part 1: Design (2009) | A code of practice for temporary traffic management design, with no statutory force except in Northern Ireland. The traffic management designer, with the project designer, has a duty to prepare a design that is safe for road users and the workforce, and signs must conform to the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions in force at the time. | An expert will measure your layouts against it, statutory or not. |
| Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, ss.1, 14 and 64 | Section 1 lets the traffic authority for a road outside Greater London make an order for listed purposes, such as avoiding danger. Section 14 allows temporary orders for works on or near a road. Section 64 requires prescribed signs unless specially authorised. | An order you draft has to fit a power and a purpose in the Act, and be signed lawfully. |
| Highways Act 1980, s.278 | A highway authority satisfied that it will benefit the public may agree with any person to carry out works on terms that the person pays all or part of the cost. | Developer-funded junction and access works are designed to the authority’s requirements and approved by it. |
Road safety audit deliberately splits responsibility, so claims often name more than one firm. GG 119 sets the split for motorways and trunk roads. On local roads, ask the highway authority which procedure it wants and record the answer in your brief.
For auditors, the exposure is a missed problem; for designers, a rejected recommendation that later looks wrong. Tell your insurer which roles you take, and keep briefs, reports and decision logs for as long as a claim could arise.
A traffic regulation order is only as sound as the procedure behind it. In England and Wales, the Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996 require the order-making authority to consult listed bodies, publish a notice of proposals, and accept objections until the date in the notice or, if later, 21 days after it completes the publicity steps. Before the order comes into force, it must put up the signs it considers needed to give road users adequate information about the order, and maintain them.
Consultants often draft the order, schedules, plans and notices. Under Part VI of Schedule 9 to the 1984 Act, anyone can apply to the High Court within six weeks of an order being made, on the ground that it is outside the Act’s powers or that a requirement was not met. The court can suspend the order meanwhile, and quash it if it is outside the powers or the applicant’s interests were substantially prejudiced.
The defences are unglamorous: schedules, plans and lining drawings that describe the same streets and times, a record of who checked each notice, and written agreement on who handles consultation and publication.
| Usually covered by PI | Often excluded or limited | Needs a different policy |
|---|---|---|
| Errors in junction and network modelling, survey analysis and forecasts | Promises that a junction will perform to a stated capacity, beyond reasonable skill and care | Injury or damage caused by survey equipment or staff on site (public liability) |
| Negligent signal, junction and section 278 design | Liquidated damages and penalties under your appointment | Injury to your own employees (employers’ liability) |
| Unsafe or unworkable temporary traffic management designs | Injury claims, where the wording leaves them to public liability | Counters, cameras and laptops (equipment or office insurance) |
| Road safety audit errors and omissions | Installing or operating traffic management, unless declared | Vehicles used on surveys (motor insurance) |
| Drafting errors in traffic orders, notices and plans | Fines and penalties | Loss of survey video or number-plate data in a cyber attack (cyber insurance) |
| Defence costs, including experts’ reports | Circumstances known before the policy started | Claims against you as a director (directors’ and officers’ liability) |
Cover depends on the insurer’s acceptance and the wording. Make sure the business description names road safety audit, traffic management design and order drafting if you do them.
Your limit is usually set by the client. Local authority appointments, highways supply chain contracts, developers and design and build contractors put a PI requirement in the appointment or subcontract. Check the amount, whether it must apply to each and every claim, and how many years after completion you must keep it. If a contract asks for more than you hold, see what to do when a contract requires a higher PI limit.
Traffic work has a long tail. A model can be relied on years after you wrote it, section 278 works are often built long after consent, and a collision blamed on a layout can happen years after opening. PI is claims-made: the policy in force when the claim is made is the one that responds. Keep cover continuous, keep your retroactive date when you change insurer, and arrange run-off cover if you retire, sell or close.
A complete proposal gets better terms than a bare one, and a broker can only present what you tell us. Have these ready:
Speak to a broker
PI for traffic consultants, placed by a named broker
Start the online proposal and save it as you go, or leave your number and a named broker will call you back, usually the same working day.
Apex Insurance Brokers is an independent insurance broker based in Bristol, established in 2009 and authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We are not tied to one insurer: we work with over 30 markets, including Lloyd’s syndicates through wholesale brokers, and every client has a named broker who handles the placement, mid-term changes, certificates for clients and the renewal.
Yes, if you model, design, audit or advise. Developers, councils and contractors rely on your models, designs, audits and traffic orders. When they are wrong, the loss is usually financial, which public liability is not designed to cover. PI responds to those claims, subject to the policy terms.
No law requires traffic consultants to hold PI. GG 119 sets competence requirements for road safety audit teams, such as a certificate of competency, but does not deal with insurance. In practice, local authorities, developers, contractors and highways supply chains set a PI requirement and a minimum limit in the appointment.
It can, if road safety audit is in your declared business and the claim alleges negligence, subject to the policy terms. Keep the brief, the report and a record of information you asked for but never received. GG 119 says audit is not a technical check of design compliance, which matters when the real complaint is about the design.
The authority that made the order bears the immediate cost. If it relied on you to prepare the order, plans or notices, it may claim its abortive costs from you, and PI can respond if order work is in your business description. Orders can be challenged in the High Court within six weeks of being made.
Usually, if you design the layouts and your policy describes that work. A design rejected on site or blamed for a collision can lead to claims for delay, redesign or injury. Supplying, installing or operating the equipment is a contracting risk for public liability and other covers.
Yes, if clients rely on your data or your analysis of it. Counts taken on an unrepresentative day, or speeds processed wrongly, can lead to designs and decisions that must be redone. Damage or injury caused by survey equipment is a public liability matter; errors in the data and its interpretation are PI matters.
Apex arranges professional indemnity insurance for traffic consultants across the UK. Tell us about your work and we’ll find cover that fits. Or call 0117 325 0027.
Start your PI proposal Call 0117 325 0027Apex 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, not advice on your individual circumstances. Cover is always subject to the insurer’s acceptance and the policy terms, and this page does not guarantee that cover will be available or on what terms.
