Consulting Engineers Professional Indemnity Insurance

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As an Engineer or Engineering Consultant you need to have adequate Professional Indemnity Insurance in place. This protects you against potential claims from clients for financial loss as a result of professional negligence. 

Engineers Professional Indemnity Insurance Policy Highlights

Two Engineers Using CAD Programming

It is highly likely that either your professional body/association or the contracts and projects that you are involved in will require you to have engineers professional indemnity insurance in place.

We understand the wide scope of work that Engineers can be involved in and can help you to arrange cover to suit your individual requirements. We deal with the UK’s leading professional indemnity insurers to make sure that we offer cover specific to engineering consultants at the most competitive premiums.

How do Professional Indemnity Insurers view the Engineering Profession?

There are many variations of engineering – chemical, civil, mechanical, electrical, electronic, structural, soil and geotechnical to name but a few. All apply to different areas of design and construction. Engineering encompasses any type of activity which aims at either solving a problem, or completing a task, related to the definition, design and specification of a product.

Our delegated authority scheme can cater for most Consulting Engineer risks allowing us to quote quickly.

What do Insurers look for?

As with other traditional professions, insurers will look for a combination of qualifications and experience. If a consultant is unqualified the Insurer will want to see a CV. Insurers will analyze a breakdown of the fee income into the following common categories:

Medium hazard. The oldest branch of engineering. Design and supervision of the construction of roads, airports, tunnels, bridges, water supply and sewage systems and buildings. They employ the latest concepts in computer-aided design (CAD) during design, construction, project scheduling and cost control.

Problem Solvers

Civil Engineers are problem solvers, meeting the challenges of pollution, the deteriorating infrastructure, traffic congestion, energy needs, floods, earthquakes, urban redevelopment and community planning. Each project is custom designed. Qualifications and relevant experience are essential.

Medium hazard. Structural engineering is the science and art of designing and making buildings, bridges, frameworks and other structures so that they can safely resist the forces to which they may be subjected.

Higher hazard. The potential consequential loss has produced some of the largest paid claims in this class. By definition things tend to be built above the work done by the soil and foundation engineer, therefore, if this work is wrong the entire project may be damaged.

Hazard Type

Lower hazard. This is an engineering discipline that involves mechanical design, energy conversion, fuel and combustion technologies, heat transfer, materials, noise control and acoustics, manufacturing processes, rail transportation, automatic control, product safety and reliability, solar energy, and technological impacts on society.

Research and design

They study the behaviour of materials when forces are applied to them, such as the motion of solids, liquids, and gases, and the heating and cooling of objects and machines. Using these basic building blocks, engineers design space vehicles, computers, power plants, intelligence machines and robots, cars, trains, airplanes, furnaces, and air conditioners.

Type of work

Mechanical Engineers work on jet engine design, submarines, hot air balloons, textiles and new materials, medical and hospital equipment, refrigerators and other home appliances. Anything that is mechanical or must interact with another machine or a human being is within the broad scope of the mechanical engineer. The work of mechanical engineers varies by industry and function.

Product Design

Large numbers of mechanical engineers do research, test, and design work while others work in maintenance, technical sales, and production operations. High technology companies seek mechanical engineering graduates for product design applications such as; plastic enclosures, thermal analysis, and electromechanical.

Lower hazard. Electrical engineers design new products, write performance requirements, and develop maintenance schedules. The usual functions in electrical engineering include research and development, planning, designing, construction, operating, and maintaining a variety of electrical apparatus and systems. They also test equipment, solve operating problems, and estimate the time and cost of projects.

Lower hazard. Usually low contract values with a good claims record. However specialists undertaking work in temperature sensitive areas such as computer rooms, food storage units may be charged penalty rates.

Higher hazard. Needs specialist qualifications. Details of average and largest values needed. Engineers would rarely carry out surveys for lending purposes but are far more likely to do a condition survey as part of a job. It is unusual for a condition survey to be carried out in isolation unless the job is then aborted which would be of little risk to insurers.

Other areas of interest for underwriting purposes include:

  • Contract sizes –There is a direct relationship between the size and complexity of the job and the exposure.

  • Technology- Is the firm using ‘cutting edge’ technology or standard, tried and tested processes?

  • Overseas exposure- Does the practice carry out work for overseas clients? Careful consideration would be paid to such work carried out for US or Canadian clients.
  • Retroactive exposure- Does the practice have an exposure to claims arising from past work, whether in the current firm or a former practice?

Typical Engineering Trades We Provide For

Engineers Professional Indemnity Claims Examples

Collapsed due to unstable sub-surface conditions not being detected by Geotechnical engineer.

Client alleges misleading estimated costs of project. A typical tactic used by clients’ to delay paying fees or reduce fees.

Failure to locate previous pilings in the area and insufficient access allowed for articulated vehicles. £80,000 remedial costs.

Refurbishment proved inadequate following miscalculations. Extra units required costing £29,000.

Against nine parties on the contract. Scattergun approach used by solicitors which will incur costs.

Alterations and temporary generator required £28,000.

Cells found to be under performing and eventually rejected. Cost £42,000.

Requiring complete refabrication to comply with Pressure Equipment Regulations 1999 claiming £1,500,000.

Main Bodies with Professional Indemnity Rules

Represents the public, professional and educational interests of over 140,000 electrical, electronic and manufacturing engineers worldwide.

With a 70,000 – 80,000 membership ICE seeks to advance the knowledge, practice and business of civil engineering, to promote the breadth and value of the civil engineer’s global contribution to sustainable, economic growth, and ethical standards, and to include in membership all those involved in the profession.

The UK’s qualifying body for mechanical engineers. The organisation represents around 82,000 engineers worldwide and has a specific Automobile Division with 18,000 members and 11 UK regional centres.

Provides a one-stop resource for technical information and expertise used in designing, building, maintaining, and operating self-propelled vehicles for use on land or sea, in air or space. SAE has a membership network of nearly 80,000 engineers, business executives, educators, and students from more than 97 countries who share information and exchange ideas for advancing the engineering of mobility systems.

There is no requirement made by these professional bodies for their members to hold or maintain professional indemnity insurance cover at any level. However, the need for such cover is obvious and most professional engineers recognise this.

In addition, most engineers find that they are required to hold and maintain cover to comply with contractual requirements such as collateral warranty agreements they are being asked to enter into as a condition of being awarded new contracts.

Wordings are usually offered on a standard engineer’s civil liability wording, often similar to that offered to architects. If the insured is unqualified, or qualified only to a limited extent, cover may only be offered on a more basic miscellaneous errors and omissions wording.

Usually the limit of indemnity will be “any one claim” with legal costs payable in addition. Sometimes the cover will be limited in the aggregate. The excess will normally not apply to insurers’ costs and expenses but again this can be amended to include costs and expenses.

  • Death or bodily injury.
  • Loss or damage to physical property (but fidelity and loss of documents are covered).
  • Punitive or exemplary damages (many policies have no geographical or jurisdiction limitations).
  • North American offices.
  • Liability to other insured’s .
  • Nuclear risks.
  • Claims and circumstances known at inception of the cover.
  • Acting as contractor.
  • Onerous collateral warranties.
  • Associated Links

The Institution has been the home of Mechanical Engineers for 150 years. Around 83,000 engineers world-wide are members.

The ICE is an independent engineering institution. It was established in 1818, and today represents over 80,000 professionally qualified engineers worldwide and the civil engineering industry.

EC was created on 22 March 2002. It is a direct successor of the chartered institution first established in 1982 to promote and regulate the engineering profession in the UK.

Engineers Professional Indemnity Insurance Proposal Form

We understand that your requirements may not be as simple as the questions asked on our online quote and buy system, therefore we ask that we complete our proposal form and send a completed copy to [email protected]. A member of our team will be in touch with you shortly.