Professions

When a standard profession has a non-standard sideline

In short: The most dangerous insurance gaps are not in unusual businesses — they are in ordinary professions with one unusual sideline. The architect who develops their own sites, the surveyor who also manages blocks of flats, the accountant whose firm hosts an IFA arm, the engineer who fabricates what they design, the consultant who takes a seat on a client board: in each case the profession fits the proposal form perfectly and the sideline sits outside the wording entirely. Sidelines grow gradually and are almost never declared. The fix is to describe the whole business — profession and sideline — and either extend the wording or arrange separate cover, with the boundary in writing.

The profession fits the form; the sideline breaks it

Professional indemnity forms are built around professions, and for the core activity they work well: an architect’s form asks architect questions, a surveyor’s form asks surveyor questions, and the wording behind each is drafted against the profession’s known claims. The trouble starts with the work that grew up alongside the profession — the sideline that now produces a meaningful slice of income but has never appeared on a proposal form, because no question ever asked about it. The policy renews each year on the profession; the sideline renews each year on nothing.

The architect who develops their own sites

An architect who buys a plot, designs the scheme and develops it for sale has stepped outside the standard wording in a way many do not realise: an architect’s PI policy typically excludes projects where the insured is the developer or has an ownership interest in the project. The logic is the insurer’s, and it is coherent — PI exists to cover your liability to a client, and where you are your own client, the commercial risk of the development is yours, not the policy’s. But the practical consequence is that the design work on your own sites — the same drawings, the same skill — may sit outside the cover entirely, including claims from eventual purchasers. Own-site development needs to be disclosed and addressed specifically; it is never safely assumed into a standard architect’s wording.

The surveyor who manages the block

A surveying practice that drifts into block management — often through one loyal client — takes on activities a survey-and-valuation wording never contemplated: arranging maintenance, administering service charges, holding client money, dealing with leaseholders. Management claims are not survey claims: they allege maladministration, mishandled funds or neglected repairs rather than negligent inspection. Client money in particular carries its own rules and its own insurance requirements. A firm doing both needs both described — and the management side either brought into the wording explicitly or insured separately.

The accountant with an IFA arm — and the will-writing desk

Accountancy practices attract sidelines because clients bring their whole financial lives through the door. Two are particularly dangerous. Regulated financial advice — investments, pensions — requires FCA permissions and its own PI arrangements; a general accountants’ wording will not respond to investment advice claims, and if the advice was given without the right permissions the problem is regulatory as well as uninsured. Will-writing and estate planning, similarly, is a distinct activity with a distinct claims pattern — often surfacing years later, from disappointed beneficiaries rather than clients — and it needs to be named in the description of activities, not assumed under “general accountancy services”. Where an IFA business operates alongside the accountancy firm, the clean structure is separate cover for each, with the boundary between them documented.

The engineer who fabricates, and the consultant on the board

Two more patterns complete the set. The consulting engineer who also fabricates or installs what they design has crossed into design-and-construct: the claim may arrive as a workmanship or product failure rather than a design failure, and the seam between the PI and the liability covers must be engineered deliberately — the same join that catches every design-and-build trade.

And the consultant who accepts a seat on a client’s board has changed hats in a way PI recognises explicitly: most PI wordings exclude the insured’s liability as an officer or director of a company. Advice given as a consultant is a PI matter; decisions taken as a director are a directors’ and officers’ matter, needing D&O cover — usually the client company’s own policy, confirmed before the appointment is accepted, or a personal arrangement where the company has none. Sitting on the board with neither is carrying personal liability uninsured.

Why sidelines never get declared — and what the fix looks like

Nobody conceals a sideline deliberately. It grows gradually — a favour becomes a service, a service becomes a department — and each renewal asks whether anything has changed, in a year when nothing much did. Five years of “nothing much” is a transformed business on an unchanged schedule. And the renewal form colludes in the drift: it asks the profession’s questions, the sideline gets no box of its own, and the firm answers everything asked of it honestly while the biggest change in the business goes unmentioned.

The fix is procedural rather than clever. Describe the whole business to the market: profession and sideline, with rough income splits. Then take the insurer’s answer in one of two forms — the wording extended to name the sideline, or separate cover arranged for it — and in either case get the boundary in writing, so that when a claim arrives no one has to argue about which activity it came from. A broker earns their keep on exactly this: drafting the description instead of selecting it, and putting the awkward question to insurers before a claimant does.

FAQ

The sideline is a small part of our income. Does it really need declaring?

Yes. Exposure does not scale with income — a single own-site development, one block’s service-charge fund or one board seat can produce a claim larger than the profession’s whole year. Insurers ask about activities, not just turnover, and an undeclared activity is a gap regardless of how little it earns.

Will declaring the sideline just put the premium up?

Sometimes the premium moves; often the answer is a modest extension or a separate small policy. What declaring always does is convert an unknown exposure into a covered one. The comparison that matters is not this year’s premium against last year’s — it is a priced extension against an uninsured claim.

Can one policy ever cover both the profession and the sideline?

Frequently, yes — many insurers will extend a professional wording to name an adjacent activity, and for combinations like surveying with management, or engineering with fabrication, that is often the cleanest outcome. Some combinations genuinely need separate cover: regulated financial advice always does, and directorships need D&O rather than PI. The point is that the answer should come from the market in writing, not from hoping the wording stretches.

What should be in writing, exactly?

Three things: a description of business that names both the profession and the sideline; the insurer’s confirmation of how the sideline is covered — within the wording, by endorsement, or under a separate policy; and where two policies exist, a clear boundary between them, so a claim involving both activities has a mapped route rather than two insurers pointing at each other.

Declare the sideline before a claimant describes it for you

Tell us the whole business — profession, sideline, income split — and we’ll get the boundary in writing.

Call 0117 325 0027 info@apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk

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.