Professional indemnity insurance
Covers financial loss caused by professional mistakes — for advisory professions and licensed activities.
Why this matters
If your work involves advising, planning or assessing, you are liable for the advice you give — not for a knocked-over glass. And this is precisely where public liability insurance stops: it pays for injury to people and damage to property, not for pure financial loss. The fiduciary who misses a deadline and leaves the client facing a back-tax bill; the architect whose measuring error pushes up the cost of a conversion; the IT company whose configuration error brings a business to a standstill for days — in none of these cases is anyone injured or anything broken, and yet a claim is on the table. Professional indemnity insurance is the cover for exactly this kind of loss.
In Switzerland it is a legal requirement for several professions: for lawyers, doctors, auditors, insurance intermediaries and other activities that require a licence. For everyone else it is voluntary — but many clients, and public authorities and larger companies in particular, ask for proof of cover before awarding a contract. Two points decide what a policy is really worth: retroactive cover for mistakes made before the policy began and noticed only later, and the extended reporting period for claims that arrive after your work has ended. Low-cost offers frequently lack both.
What you get out of it
One mistake in your advice need not cost you your livelihood.
Covers financial loss — where public liability insurance stops.
Compulsory in many professions: fiduciary services, law, medicine, architecture, IT.
What we take care of for you
- Checking whether your profession is subject to compulsory insurance
- Comparing insurers by sum insured, retroactive cover and extended reporting period
- Drawing a clear line between professional and public liability — so that no gap is left
- Support with claims, from the first notification through to settlement
The advice is free for you — we are remunerated by the insurance companies through brokerage commissions and will disclose these on request.
Tips from our consultations
What we tell our clients time and again – free of charge, even before the first meeting.
For some professions the law prescribes a minimum sum insured, and the licence depends on it. We check what applies to your particular activity — before you buy a policy that turns out to be too small.
A mistake in advice is rarely noticed on the same day. Without retroactive cover, every mistake made before the policy started remains uninsured — even if the claim only comes in while the policy is running.
If you close your business or retire, you remain liable. An extended reporting period of five or ten years costs little and prevents a late claim from eating into your retirement savings.
The two cover different kinds of loss. If you have only one of them, you have a gap — usually in exactly the place where your main risk lies. We put the two policies together so that nothing falls between them.