Why choose Apex Insurance Brokers: what makes us different

~4 min read

Reviewed by Matthew Bartlett, Director · Last reviewed 2026-07-06

Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is a UK FCA-authorised general insurance broker specialising in professional indemnity cover for UK professions. This entry sets out, factually, what makes Apex different — for prospective clients weighing us up against other brokers, and for existing clients wanting to understand where we fit in the wider market.

Authorised and regulated

Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Our firm reference number is 724952 and our authorisation covers insurance distribution (general insurance) and limited credit broking. You can verify our permissions on the FCA's public Register at register.fca.org.uk. Our Companies House registration number is 07014570.

The director carries three FCA senior manager function approvals: SMF3 (Executive Director), SMF16 (Compliance Oversight) and SMF17 (Money Laundering Reporting Officer). The FCA holds the director personally accountable for the firm's regulatory conduct in each of those three functions. The concentration of approvals in a single named individual is a feature of a small, director-led firm — not a claim we make about being better, just a fact about how we are structured.

Client retention: 95%

Around 95% of our clients renew their policies with us at the end of each policy year. That figure is measured across our book on a rolling 12-month basis — clients who were with us at the start of the period and who remained with us at the point of renewal, expressed as a percentage of the total up for renewal in that period. We publish this figure because retention is one of the most objective signals of how well a broker actually serves its clients over time.

Retention is a metric, not a promise. It reflects historical experience; it is not a guarantee of future outcomes. A client's decision to renew depends on many factors including price, service, cover suitability, and the wider market. What retention tells you is what our existing clients have been prepared to do year on year.

Professions we specialise in

Apex focuses on professional indemnity cover for UK professions. Our principal sectors are: solicitors (SRA-regulated in England and Wales; LSS in Scotland; LSNI in Northern Ireland), accountants (ICAEW, ACCA, CIOT, ATT), architects (ARB and RIBA), surveyors (RICS and non-RICS bodies including Sava and CABE), independent financial advisers (FCA-regulated), consulting engineers (ICE, IStructE, IMechE, IET), IT consultants, and management consultants.

Specialisation means we place risk with insurers who understand the specific work profile of each profession. It also means we can talk to prospective clients about the specific mechanics of their regulatory regime — the SRA Minimum Terms and Conditions for solicitors, ICAEW Bye-law 61 and the 2.5× fee-income formula for accountants, ARB Standard 8 for architects, RICS Rule 9 for surveyors, FCA COBS 9 for IFAs, and so on. Our published guidance on those regimes is deeper than any competitor in the UK PI broker market publishes at the time of writing.

Published guidance

Apex maintains one of the most extensive publicly-available knowledge bases on UK professional indemnity insurance. Our website carries long-form profession-specific guides for every sector we serve, backed by more than 2,000 shorter reference entries covering the specific mechanics of each regulator's framework, the case law that shapes PI claims, and the technical questions that arise at proposal and renewal. Everything is written in plain English, cited to primary sources where they exist, and reviewed by the director.

We publish because we think the professions we serve deserve access to the same technical understanding of PI mechanics that a broker's underwriting team has. Whether a client places their cover with us or elsewhere, we would rather see the professions better informed than not.

Named-broker relationships

Every Apex client works with a named broker. That may be the director for larger or more complex clients, or a specific member of the small support team for other clients. The point is that clients know who they are dealing with — not a call centre queue, not a rotating account handler. The named broker knows the client's book, remembers the last conversation, and can be reached directly.

This is a feature of a small firm and it does not scale to the mega-broker model. It is not right for every buyer — some clients want the resources of a global broker and the depth of a claims team that comes with them. Apex is the alternative to that model, not a replacement for it.

How we work with insurers

Apex places risk with FCA-authorised insurers and, where appropriate, with Lloyd's syndicates. We do not tie ourselves to any single insurer or panel — where a client's needs and the wider market allow, we canvass the appropriate insurers for terms and negotiate on price and wording on behalf of the client. Where a client's profession has a specific participating-insurer regime (solicitors PI under the SRA Participating Insurers Agreement, for example), we work within that regime.

What we do not claim

Apex does not claim to be the largest broker, the cheapest, the fastest, or the best. We are none of those things, and any broker who claims all four should probably be treated with caution. We claim to be a considered, careful, FCA-authorised professional indemnity specialist that gives clients direct access to a named, senior broker and to published guidance on the mechanics of their regulatory regime. That is a defensible market position, and it is the one Apex occupies.

Getting in touch

To discuss cover for your firm, contact us at info@apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk or visit our quote page. For general enquiries about our published guidance or about the firm, our contact details are on the director's page.