Run-off insurance is the professional indemnity cover that sits behind you after your practice has stopped trading. It is the difference between a clean cessation and a personal liability that outlives the firm by six years or more. Every regulated professional in the UK — solicitor, accountant, architect, surveyor, financial adviser, engineer, IT consultant — will need to think about run-off at some point. The rules differ by regulator, sometimes sharply, and the cost consequences of getting the timing wrong are significant.
This guide sets out what run-off is, who needs it, and — the section most readers arrive here for — a side-by-side comparison of the run-off requirements imposed by each of the major UK professional regulators, from the Solicitors Regulation Authority through to the Financial Conduct Authority. It is written for practising professionals planning cessation, retirement or a sale, and for the accountants and advisers helping them do so.
Professional indemnity insurance in the UK is written on a claims-made basis. That means the policy that responds to a claim is the one in force on the date the claim is made against you, not the policy in force on the date the alleged negligence occurred. The mechanism works cleanly while you are trading and renewing every year. It fails the moment your last policy expires and is not replaced. Any claim that arrives after the last policy expires has no policy to respond to, even though the alleged negligence may have taken place while cover was in place.
Run-off cover closes that gap. It is a specialised form of professional indemnity that responds only to claims made after cessation, arising from work carried out before cessation. It carries no cover for new work — there is no new work to cover — and it does not renew in the ordinary sense. Instead, it is bought for a defined period, usually paid up-front or spread across the term, and it holds the retroactive date of the original policy so historic acts remain within scope.
The length of run-off cover required depends entirely on your regulator. A solicitor closing an England and Wales practice needs six years of run-off. A Scottish solicitor's Master Policy covers cessation claims in perpetuity. An ICAEW-regulated accountant has a shorter mandatory period than an ACCA-regulated one. The variations matter, and are set out below.
Anyone who has been the principal of a regulated professional practice and is planning to stop practising should assume run-off is on the table. The trigger events are more varied than most people realise. Retirement is the obvious one, but the same requirement can arise on career change into industry, closure of a struggling firm, sale where the buyer chooses not to assume historic liabilities, merger where the merged entity carves out pre-merger risk, dissolution of a partnership, or death of a sole principal (in which case the estate faces the obligation).
The rule is broadly the same for sole practitioners, partnerships and limited-company practices. Closing the limited company does not extinguish the regulatory obligation on the principal — a point discussed below. In every case the question to ask is: from the date the last active policy expires, for how long could a claim still be brought against me for work I did before that date? That period is your run-off exposure.
The following sub-sections summarise the mandatory or expected run-off position under each of the main UK professional regulators. Where a regulator sets a fixed term, we give it. Where the requirement is framed as an adequacy standard rather than a fixed period, we say so.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority requires six years of run-off cover for any firm ceasing practice without a successor practice. The requirement is set out in the SRA Minimum Terms and Conditions (MTC), which every qualifying insurer must underwrite to. When the last active policy expires, the outgoing insurer is contractually obliged to provide six years of run-off cover, and — importantly — is required to do so even where the firm fails to pay the premium. The unpaid premium becomes a debt owed by the firm to the insurer, but cover attaches regardless.
Premiums for SRA-compliant run-off typically fall in a range of two to three times the last annual premium, though the multiplier is driven by work mix, claims history and the insurer's own rate card. Payment can be a single up-front premium or, with some insurers, spread across the term. The six-year period reflects the standard limitation period for claims in negligence and matches the pattern of when historic claims actually arrive: SRA analysis has indicated that roughly nine in ten run-off claims are notified within six years of cessation.
Scottish solicitors sit under a fundamentally different arrangement. The Law Society of Scotland's Master Policy, administered by Lockton, provides run-off cover in perpetuity for firms that cease without a successor practice, for as long as the Master Policy arrangement remains in force. There is no fixed six-year cut-off. Cover continues to respond to claims intimated many years after closure, subject to the applicable limit of indemnity in place at the time the claim is made.
The run-off contribution is paid as a one-off charge on cessation, calculated by the brokers with reference to fee income and claims record. Firms that have contributed to the Master Policy for at least four years without a Master Policy claim may attract no run-off contribution at all. Scottish solicitors moving to an England and Wales practice, or from Scotland to another jurisdiction, need to think carefully about how the Master Policy interacts with the position on the other side of the border.
Northern Irish solicitors also operate under a Master Policy-style arrangement administered through the Law Society of Northern Ireland. As with the Scottish arrangement, closed firms without a successor practice are picked up by the collective mechanism rather than being required to source and pay for six years of individual run-off cover on the England and Wales pattern. Detailed terms vary from year to year; the point for planning purposes is that the requirement is not the SRA MTC and should not be treated as such.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales requires firms ceasing to engage in public practice to have run-off cover meeting the standards of the ICAEW Professional Indemnity Insurance Regulations. The direct obligation on the outgoing insurer is two years — under the minimum policy wording, the existing insurer must offer run-off cover for at least two years from cessation. Beyond that period, the ICAEW regulations require the member to take all reasonable steps to maintain cover for a further four years, taking total protection to six years.
Because insurers routinely require to have held the risk for at least two years before quoting a full six-year block, the practical position is that many accountants close with a two-year single-premium run-off from their last insurer and then buy or extend cover into years three to six through a broker. Premiums are typically modest relative to the solicitor market, though work mix — audit exposure in particular — is a significant driver.
The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants updated its Professional Indemnity Insurance Regulations with effect from 1 September 2023. The requirement is now a full six years of run-off cover for members who cease to engage in public practice, mandatory across the whole term rather than a two-plus-four split. The change followed ACCA's Regulatory Board's analysis of run-off claim patterns and its judgement that the earlier position undersupplied consumer protection in years three to six.
The practical impact is that ACCA-regulated practices ceasing after September 2023 need six years of cover locked in from cessation — usually as a single-premium purchase from the outgoing insurer or a specialist run-off market. Members transferring from an ICAEW-regulated firm to an ACCA-regulated one, or vice versa, should treat the two regimes as distinct at the point of cessation.
The Institute of Financial Accountants' Public Practice Regulations require that a member ceasing to be a principal in a public practice firm that itself ceases to exist must have arrangements for run-off cover for not less than six years after ceasing to be a principal. The obligation therefore attaches to the individual as well as to the firm, which matters where a principal leaves shortly before the firm closes rather than as part of the cessation itself.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' Rules of Conduct, at Rule 9, require regulated firms to ensure that all previous and current professional work is covered by adequate and appropriate professional indemnity cover meeting RICS-approved standards. The RICS Professional Indemnity Insurance Requirements set out the detail. Where a firm ceases and the policy is not replaced, six years of consumer run-off cover applies automatically — subject to a limit of £1 million in the aggregate for the six-year period — provided the run-off premium has been paid.
Business-to-business run-off must be purchased separately from that automatic consumer run-off. Practices with substantial commercial exposure — commercial valuation work, Red Book valuations, building surveying for developers — should not assume the automatic consumer element is sufficient. Where a firm cannot secure adequate run-off in the open market, the RICS Run-Off Pool exists as a safety-net facility, but access and terms are not automatic.
The Architects Registration Board's Architects Code, Standard 8, requires architects to ensure adequate and appropriate professional indemnity insurance is in place to cover professional work. The ARB does not mandate a specific fixed run-off term in the same way the SRA mandates six years; instead, ARB guidance sets the expectation that run-off cover should be maintained for six years (or five years in Scotland, reflecting the different Scottish limitation regime) with a minimum indemnity limit of £250,000 on an each-and-every-claim basis.
In practice, six years is the industry norm. The BSA 2022 discussion below extends the picture materially for any architect who has designed or specified work on higher-risk buildings, where the potential limitation period is not six years at all.
Firms authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority operate under the Prudential Sourcebook for Mortgage and Home Finance Firms and Insurance Intermediaries (MIPRU), chapter 3 of which sets the PII requirements. MIPRU 3 does not prescribe a fixed run-off term in the manner of the SRA MTC. What it does — read alongside the FCA's Consumer Duty (PRIN 2A) and the Financial Ombudsman Service's jurisdiction — is create ongoing responsibility for advice given while regulated, well after a firm has cancelled its permissions.
The FOS can consider complaints many years after the event, especially in advice sectors where the loss may not crystallise until a later date (pension transfers being the most obvious example). Run-off periods for FCA-authorised firms therefore tend to be set by reference to the type of business written rather than a fixed regulator term, with two to six years covering most typical situations and longer periods for advice books with material long-tail exposure. Firms ceasing regulated activities should engage with the FCA's post-authorisation team well before the last day of trading.
Engineers are not regulated in the same statutory sense as solicitors, accountants or architects. There is no single mandated run-off term set by the Engineering Council or by ICE, IStructE, IMechE, IChemE and the other institutions. Run-off provision is therefore driven by contract — the client engagement's requirement for maintained PI — and by the engineer's own judgement on tail exposure.
Section 135 of the Building Safety Act 2022 changed that judgement materially. For any engineer who has designed, supervised or advised on higher-risk building work, the limitation period under the Defective Premises Act 1972 was extended prospectively to 15 years from the accrual of the cause of action, and retrospectively to 30 years for causes of action accrued before 28 June 2022. Six years of run-off is unlikely to be adequate for such work. Fifteen years, or a longer period, is more realistic for the affected book, and pricing will reflect that. Structural engineers and building services engineers in particular should treat BSA 2022 as a first-order factor in cessation planning.
Apex will discuss specific figures with any client on a case-by-case basis. What we will say publicly is what drives the number. Understanding the drivers is more useful than any headline range, because the range is only ever as good as the assumptions behind it.
The main drivers are the profession, the last annual premium (used as the multiplier base), the work mix carried out by the firm in its trading years (conveyancing, audit, high-value design, complex commercial advice, regulated financial advice — all push the multiplier up), the claims history (a clean record materially reduces the multiplier), the insurer's own rate card and appetite for run-off business, whether the premium is paid as a single up-front sum or spread across the term, the deductible or excess sitting behind the cover, and — often overlooked — the preservation of the original retroactive date so that historic acts remain in scope.
Two firms with identical last-annual premiums can end up with materially different run-off costs on the strength of those variables alone. That is why the honest answer to "how much will my run-off be" is: it depends, and it will always depend, and we will run the numbers for you.
Buying run-off is not the only route. Where the closing firm's historic liabilities are picked up by another firm — typically through acquisition, merger or the transfer of a partnership into an existing entity — that other firm becomes a "successor practice" for regulatory purposes, and its own PII responds to claims arising from the closing firm's pre-cessation work. No separate run-off purchase is then required.
The mechanics vary by regulator. The SRA defines successor practice in its glossary and applies specific tests, including whether the successor holds itself out to be the continuation of the old firm, whether it takes on the goodwill, and whether it holds the client files. For accountants, ICAEW and ACCA both recognise successor arrangements, though less prescriptively than the SRA. RICS and ARB apply their own tests. The critical planning point is that a successor practice arrangement is not something a firm can assert unilaterally; the insurer of the receiving firm has to accept the risk, and often prices for it.
Where a genuine successor practice exists, run-off is redundant. Where it does not — for example, where the buyer takes the client base and the staff but expressly excludes historic liabilities — the closing firm still needs full run-off in the ordinary way. The paperwork on this matters. Sale-and-purchase heads of terms should specify who bears the historic PI obligation.
Assuming that closing the limited company avoids the run-off obligation. It does not. The obligation to arrange run-off attaches to the professional practice, and — via the last active insurer's contractual duty under the SRA MTC or equivalent — persists whether the corporate vehicle continues to exist or not. Dissolving the company does not neutralise a claim brought by an old client under the regulatory scheme.
Buying run-off too late. Once a firm has ceased and the last policy has expired, the market for run-off tightens sharply. Some insurers will only offer run-off to firms whose last policy they wrote themselves; others will quote, but on terms that reflect the reduced competitive tension. Firms that leave the run-off decision until the day before cessation routinely pay more than firms that engage the market three to six months out.
Not preserving the retroactive date across insurer changes. Every time a firm switches insurer, the new policy should either match the old policy's retroactive date or, at worst, take the incepting date of the original PII. Where the retroactive date creeps forward — because a new insurer will only pick up new work — the practice acquires a hidden gap that becomes acute at cessation. The run-off policy is only as far-reaching as the retroactive date it holds.
Assuming a professional-body scheme automatically provides run-off. Scottish and Northern Irish solicitors do sit within collective arrangements that cover cessation. Solicitors in England and Wales do not. Accountants do not. Architects do not. Surveyors do not. The assumption that "the professional body will sort it" has caused more retirement-planning surprises than any other single misunderstanding in this area.
Twelve to twenty-four months before intended cessation is the sensible starting point for the planning conversation. Insurer conversations open in earnest three to six months before the last policy expires. Documentation for the regulator — cessation notifications to the SRA, ICAEW, ACCA, RICS, ARB or FCA as applicable — needs to be lodged in line with the specific regulator's timetable, which for some (the FCA) can require several months' notice.
Firms selling into an acquirer have an additional layer: heads of terms need to allocate the run-off cost between buyer and seller, and to specify whether the transaction is being structured as a successor-practice succession or as a clean asset sale with the seller retaining historic liabilities. Getting that allocation wrong at the heads-of-terms stage is painful to unwind in the sale documentation.
For firms that have not yet formed a firm view on the cessation date — many senior partners in this position — an exploratory conversation with the broker two years out is not premature. It allows the run-off exposure to be scoped alongside the succession-planning options, so that the run-off cost becomes an input to the retirement or sale decision rather than a surprise that appears late in the process.
Apex Insurance Brokers is an FCA-authorised professional indemnity broker (firm reference number 724952) with a named director — Matthew Bartlett, SMF3, SMF16 and SMF17 — accountable for the advice given. Our published guidance covers every major regulator regime discussed on this page, from the SRA Minimum Terms and Conditions through to ARB Standard 8, and our placement work covers whole-of-market access across the UK PI insurers writing run-off business.
We work with sole practitioners closing a practice, with two- and three-partner firms handling a retirement, with larger partnerships going through a merger or sale, and with regulated financial advice firms whose FCA cessation planning needs to reconcile MIPRU, Consumer Duty and FOS-jurisdiction considerations at the same time. Where the position is straightforward we place the cover and move on. Where it is not — BSA 2022 exposure, cross-border practice, disputed successor-practice status — we take the time it takes.
Run-off insurance is a form of professional indemnity cover that responds only to claims made after a practice has ceased trading, arising from work carried out before cessation. Because PI is written on a claims-made basis, the last active policy stops responding to new claims the moment it expires. Run-off replaces that ongoing response for a defined period.
It depends on the regulator. Solicitors in England and Wales need six years under the SRA Minimum Terms and Conditions. Solicitors in Scotland are covered in perpetuity via the Law Society of Scotland's Master Policy. ICAEW-regulated accountants have a two-year mandatory minimum with all-reasonable-steps expectation to six years; ACCA-regulated accountants have a six-year mandatory requirement; IFA-regulated accountants need six years. RICS surveyors have six years of automatic consumer run-off, with business-to-business cover to be purchased separately. Architects under ARB Standard 8 are expected to hold six years (five in Scotland). FCA-authorised firms have no single fixed term but need cover reflecting their FOS exposure.
Apex discusses specific figures on a case-by-case basis because too many variables drive the answer. The main drivers are the profession, the last annual premium, work mix, claims history, the insurer's rate card and appetite for run-off, whether the premium is single or spread, the deductible level, and whether the original retroactive date is preserved. Two firms with the same last-annual premium can end up paying different run-off amounts because of those variables. A conversation with the broker produces a considered figure that a headline range cannot.
Only if the merged firm is a successor practice for regulatory purposes and its own PII picks up your historic liabilities. Where the successor arrangement is valid — accepted by the regulator and by the receiving firm's insurer — no separate run-off is needed. Where the merger is structured as an asset transfer that expressly excludes historic liabilities, the closing firm needs to buy run-off in the ordinary way. The paperwork on this needs to be clear at heads-of-terms stage, not left until completion.
No. Dissolving the corporate vehicle does not extinguish the regulatory obligation to arrange run-off. Under the SRA Minimum Terms and Conditions, the last active insurer is contractually obliged to provide six years of run-off cover regardless of whether the firm pays the premium — the premium becomes a debt owed to the insurer, but cover attaches. Equivalent mechanisms apply in other regulated professions. Winding up the company is not a workaround.
A successor practice is a firm that takes on the historic liabilities of a closing firm as part of an acquisition, merger or succession. Where the successor practice status is properly established, the successor's own PII policy responds to claims arising from the closing firm's pre-cessation work, and no separate run-off cover is needed. The SRA sets out specific tests in its glossary; other regulators recognise successor arrangements with varying degrees of prescription. The receiving firm's insurer has to accept the risk, and often prices for it, which is why the successor-practice route is not automatically cheaper than buying stand-alone run-off.
If you were a principal of a firm that has ceased, yes — the run-off obligation attaches through the closing firm, regardless of what you do next. Taking employment with another regulated firm as an employee does not neutralise historic principal exposure. The employer's own PII typically covers your work as an employee going forward, but does not respond retrospectively to work you carried out as a principal at the closed firm.
For sector-specific guidance, see our main pillar guides for solicitors, accountants, architects and surveyors. For the specific regulator provisions referenced above, see our explainers on the SRA Minimum Terms and Conditions, the Law Society of Scotland Master Policy, ICAEW Bye-law 61, ARB Standard 8 and RICS Rule 9. For a solicitor-specific view of the six-year period, see our six-year run-off explainer. Sole-practitioner solicitors will find the sole-practitioner PI guide a useful companion, and firms weighing an extended policy period ahead of cessation should read the EPP decision flowchart.
Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Firm reference number 724952. This page is general guidance, not advice on a specific set of circumstances. Where a decision matters — retirement, sale, cessation or succession — engage a broker (and where appropriate a solicitor) on your own facts.