Reviewed by Matthew Bartlett, Director · Last reviewed 8 July 2026
If a client, contractor or subsequent purchaser has raised a defect that is being pointed at your design, if a party has intimated a claim, if an ARB complaint has landed, or if you have spotted something on a completed project that could develop — a specification issue, a coordination gap, an inspection concern — this entry sets out how a UK architect should think about the next 24 to 48 hours. It covers notification under a claims-made wording, why timing is critical, what ARB expects in parallel, and what your broker does at this point. Read it once, then pick up the phone.
Architects' PI is written on a claims-made basis. The policy responds to claims and to notified circumstances arising during the period of insurance, not to matters that arose during it but were never told to the insurer. The Insurance Act 2015 sits underneath this: section 3 sets the duty of fair presentation at inception, renewal and any material variation, and section 13A gives the insured a route where an insurer has breached the implied term to pay claims within a reasonable time. Late notification is one of the largest single technical reasons claims fall over at coverage stage. Notifying a circumstance does not commit you to admitting anything — it preserves the year's cover you have already bought.
A claim under an architect's PI wording does not have to be a court proceeding. It can be a letter from a client, an email from the contractor blaming a design detail, a Notice of Adjudication, an approved-inspector observation that a client is pinning on your role, or an internal note that a reasonable practice principal would read as something that might turn into a claim. The wording standard is that a fact, matter, event or circumstance which may reasonably be expected to give rise to a claim must be notified. The test is objective. Once someone senior in the practice has identified it, the practical clock has started.
The Architects Registration Board (ARB) is the statutory regulator under the Architects Act 1997. ARB's Architects Code — the Standards of Conduct and Practice — frames how architects must operate. Standard 8 requires architects to have adequate and appropriate PI insurance in place and to take reasonable steps to ensure the terms of the cover are appropriate to the size and nature of the practice. Standard 9 (Maintaining the standard of your work) requires competence to be maintained, and where a matter suggests competence is in issue, ARB's investigation and Professional Conduct Committee processes can run in parallel with a civil claim. The Building Safety Act 2022 significantly extended limitation for defective-dwelling claims under section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972, and s.135 of the BSA has practical implications for how far back liability can reach for buildings within scope. RIBA membership is separate from ARB registration and carries its own professional conduct framework where the architect is a Chartered Member.
Do not respond to the client, contractor or complainant on substance until you have notified your broker. Preserve every drawing revision, model file, email, meeting note and site inspection record; do not annotate or "clean up" a project archive after the event. Do not admit liability, offer a fee reduction that reads as an admission, or float a settlement figure in correspondence. Notify your broker straightaway; the broker handles the notification to the insurer in the form the wording requires and manages what happens next. If a Notice of Adjudication has been served, or there is a live construction-programme deadline running against the client, tell the broker in the first conversation — that changes the sequence.
A named broker who has run architects' notifications before will take the summary from you, prepare and submit the notification to the insurer in the form the wording requires, protect your position on scope and late-notification questions, and manage the appointment of defence solicitors from the insurer's approved panel. From there the broker deals with any reservation of rights letter, the reserve conversation, coverage disputes around net contribution and design-and-build interfaces, and any BSA-related limitation questions that surface as the matter develops. Apex is a broker, not an insurer or a defence firm; the broker handles the notification and manages the process with the insurer's appointed defence panel. This is where broker experience earns its keep.
Not because Apex clients never have claims. Architecture is a long-tail exposure, and defects can surface years after practical completion. Apex clients renew because when a matter arose, the notification was made properly, the year's cover attached, and the practice reached the next renewal in a position to place terms on the merits rather than under a cloud.
Notification urgent?
If a matter has just arisen, call now. Late notification is one of the largest single reasons claims get declined. A named broker will pick up the phone and start the notification with you.