The short answer is yes. If you are on the Architects Registration Board (ARB) register and offering architectural services in the UK, you need professional indemnity insurance. It is a professional obligation, not a matter of personal preference, and the framework around it has become more demanding over the past few years — particularly for anyone touching residential buildings.
The ARB Architects Code: Standards of Conduct and Practice sets out twelve standards that every registered architect must meet. Standard 8 requires you to have adequate and appropriate professional indemnity insurance arrangements in place to cover you, your practice and your employees for the services you provide. Failure to comply is a matter the ARB's Professional Conduct Committee can pursue as unacceptable professional conduct, with sanctions running from a reprimand through to erasure from the register.
Practising as an architect in the UK without cover is therefore not simply a commercial gamble — it is a regulatory breach.
Standard 8 does not set a fixed limit. It requires the arrangements to be adequate and appropriate to the risks the practice actually runs. That is a judgment for the architect and the broker, taking account of the type and value of projects, the client mix, the contractual position and any onward liabilities inherited from previous engagements.
RIBA guidance on PI insurance encourages members to consider limits proportionate to fee income, the scale of individual projects and — critically since 2022 — the extended-limitation exposure on higher-risk building work. RIBA guidance has historically pointed to minimum each-and-every-claim limits in the region of £250,000 to £1,000,000 for smaller residential practices, with larger commercial and higher-risk work sitting well above that. These figures are a starting point for conversation, not a floor set in stone.
Section 135 of the Building Safety Act 2022 amended the Defective Premises Act 1972 to extend the limitation period for claims relating to dwellings. For work completed after the Act came into force, the limitation period is now 15 years. For work completed before, it is 30 years, running retrospectively. That is a step change for anyone whose portfolio includes residential dwellings or higher-risk buildings (HRBs) as defined by the Act.
Practically, this means an architect's exposure window on residential work is now materially longer than the run-off periods many practices historically arranged. See our note on Building Safety Act 2022 architect PI implications for a fuller walk-through.
PI is written on a claims-made basis. A claim is picked up by the policy in force when it is notified, not when the work was done. Once a practice ceases trading, retires or merges, run-off cover is what stands between the former principals and personal exposure to a late claim.
Six years was for a long time the informal benchmark. Current market practice increasingly suggests longer periods — often 10 to 15 years, and in some cases longer where HRB or dwellings work sits in the back catalogue. Any decision on run-off length should be made with the extended-limitation position from BSA 2022 firmly in view.
The obligation is the same. What differs is the shape of the risk. A sole practitioner running a residential extension book has a concentrated exposure to Defective Premises Act claims and needs to think carefully about limits and run-off. A larger practice with a mixed commercial and residential portfolio will have a broader spread but usually larger individual project values, so aggregate limits and each-and-every construction become more prominent. Either way, the cover should follow the work.
Two things, running in parallel. First, ARB disciplinary action for breach of Standard 8, with the sanctions noted above. Second, personal exposure: without an insurer standing behind you, any successful claim comes out of the practice — and, for a sole practitioner or partnership, potentially out of personal assets.
Consider a newly-qualified architect leaving a mid-size firm to set up on their own, planning to focus on residential extensions and small new-build homes. ARB Code Standard 8 requires PI from the day the practice starts trading. Following RIBA guidance and taking account of typical residential project values, a broker might discuss limits in the £250,000 to £1,000,000 each-and-every range as a starting position, with the final figure informed by the project mix and client contracts. Because the work sits inside the Defective Premises Act perimeter as amended by BSA 2022 s.135, run-off cover at cessation is a real conversation — not a formality — and needs to be planned for from the outset rather than dealt with as an afterthought at retirement.
For the wider context see our architects PI insurance UK guide. Related material sits on our professional indemnity insurance UK guide and our surveyors PI insurance guide, both of which cover claims-made mechanics and run-off in more depth. The Building Safety Act 2022 architect PI implications entry sits alongside this one.
Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Firm reference number 724952. This entry is general information, not advice on any particular policy.