ABSTRACT

It may be regretted but it is a fact that client—professional relationships take an increasingly legal format. Moreover, the bespoke contracts are getting longer, and a distinct expansion was notable after the downturn in 2008. Without a professional indemnity (PI) insurance awareness, a practitioner may not realise that the wordings they have accepted go beyond their cover or are prejudicial to their insurers. A clause stating that the client is deemed to have relied on the professional’s work may pass unremarked, for example, and yet it is a waiver of an evidential requirement and compromises important causation defences. If by a 'professional mistake', an error of knowledge or methodology is intended, the reality is actually different. While claims numbers vary year on year, it has been recurring PI and risk consultancy experience that only a third of claims fundamentally arise from a failure or error in knowledge — i.e. in getting the design, advice or methodology wrong.