Professional indemnity renewal is not a single date in the diary. For a regulated firm it is a rolling exercise in disclosure, evidence-gathering and internal sign-off that begins several months before the expiring policy ends. The Insurance Act 2015 places a duty of fair presentation on every commercial insured (section 3), requires a reasonable search of information available within the firm (section 4), fixes what the insured is taken to know (section 7), and sets out the remedies where a qualifying breach occurs (section 8). Firms that leave the process to the final fortnight compress their reasonable search into a period that is rarely reasonable at all.
Ninety days before renewal, open a working file for the renewal. Circulate a known-circumstances questionnaire to every partner, director and senior fee-earner. The purpose is to capture any matter that a prudent insurer would want to see: complaint letters, adverse client correspondence, fee disputes, regulatory queries, missed limitation dates, drafting errors identified after completion, and near-misses caught by supervision. Compile a claims and circumstances register that runs from the last renewal to date, cross-referenced against the firm's complaints log and the file-review record.
At the same stage, identify structural changes since the last renewal — new practice areas, lateral hires, mergers, offices, subcontractor arrangements, jurisdictions worked into, and any material change in fee income mix. Each is potentially material under section 3.
Forty-five days out, the proposal-form draft should be complete and internally reviewed. Senior management sign off the disclosures in writing; that sign-off is itself evidence of a reasonable search under section 4. The broker then begins the market approach with a clean, dated submission. Firms sitting under a professional body's approved-insurer scheme should still expect their broker to test the wider market where the rules permit.
Three weeks before renewal, insurer terms should be in. Compare each against the expiring policy: limit of indemnity, aggregate or each-and-every basis, deductible, defence-costs treatment, run-off provisions, and the extensions that matter to the practice (loss of documents, dishonesty of employees, ombudsman awards, mitigation costs, cyber write-back where relevant). A cheaper premium on a narrower wording is not always a saving.
On the day, bind cover, obtain the schedule and the policy wording, and confirm the continuous-cover trigger where the profession requires it. For solicitors regulated by the SRA, the Minimum Terms and Conditions require continuous cover, and any gap creates immediate regulatory exposure. Architects registered with the ARB should note the notification obligations in the ARB Code, particularly Standard 8 on maintaining adequate insurance and notifying material changes. Chartered accountants regulated by the ICAEW work to the ICAEW PII Regulations 2020, which set minimum limits by fee income and require prompt notification of any lapse.
After binding, file the schedule with the practice's regulator where required and update the client-facing certificate or register. Diarise mid-term notification triggers so the firm does not drift back into passive mode until next spring.
A five-partner solicitors' practice renews on 1 September. On 1 June (90 days out) the managing partner circulates a known-circumstances questionnaire to all partners and senior associates. Two complaint letters that had been handled at fee-earner level surface — neither had reached the firm-wide complaints log. Under section 3 of the Insurance Act 2015 both are material and both are added to the disclosure at the 45-day sign-off. The firm avoids a qualifying breach under section 8 that could otherwise have entitled the insurer to avoid the policy or reduce a claim payment proportionately.
Sector guides for the professions Apex serves: solicitors' PI, accountants' PI, architects' PI, surveyors' PI and IFAs' PI.
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.