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Professional indemnity insurance

Page reviewed on 11 September 2026 Written by an FSMA-registered broker.

It pays for the damage your work causes a third party: faulty advice, a wrongly dimensioned drawing, a badly scoped file. Without it, the bill is yours.

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Architecte, consultant, ingénieur et médecin au travail : les métiers que couvre la Professional indemnity
The principle

What is professional indemnity insurance?

Professional indemnity insurance covers the damage you cause unintentionally to a third party in the course of your work. What makes it distinctive: here the damage arises from your professional service, not from a physical accident. A wrongly dimensioned drawing, mistaken tax advice, a line of code that loses data, a missed diagnosis: all situations where your liability can be engaged, sometimes years after the event.

Without insurance, it is your assets, business and often personal, that answer the claim. With professional indemnity cover, the insurer handles the claim, defends you against the covered claim and pays the compensation due, within the limits of the policy.

Note: that defence is limited to the covered dispute. To fund your own steps, recover your costs, bring criminal proceedings or sue, you need extended legal expenses cover, distinct from professional indemnity.

The most expensive confusion

Professional indemnity or public liability: do not confuse them

Many self-employed people think they are covered because they have “some liability cover”. In reality they often have only half of it.

Contractual fault

Professional indemnity

Covers the faults committed in your work : faulty advice, a wrong calculation, an omission, culpable delay, a breach of obligation. The damage is most often financial, a loss suffered by the client. It is the breach of what you owed per policy.

Non-contractual fault

Public liability

Covers the property damage and bodily injury caused to third parties during your activity, outside the performance of the contract: a client injured on your premises, damage caused at theirs. It also coverspost-delivery liability and goods in your care.

Depending on your trade you need one, the other, or both. A consultant: mainly professional indemnity. A tradesperson who travels: both. Public liability, post-delivery liability, goods in your care and ten-year structural liability have their own page, everything about public liability. This is exactly the kind of trade-off where a broker stops you paying for nothing, or discovering a gap on the day of the claim.

The right yardstick

Your turnover says nothing about your risk

Three reconstructed cases: the one who invoices the most is not the one facing the largest claim. What determines the stakes is the nature of the work, not the volume of business.

  • Annual turnover
  • Amount claimed by the client
  • IT consultant, working alone an update fails, the client's workshop is down for 9 days
    95 000 €
    155 000 €
  • Freelance graphic designer a print run to recall and image rights not cleared
    60 000 €
    120 000 €
  • Engineering consultancy, 4 people a wrongly dimensioned drawing, a wall to knock down again
    320 000 €
    38 000 €
Cases reconstructed from everyday files, indicative amounts excluding defence costs. Both bars are on the same scale.
Estimate

What limit for my activity?

Slide your turnover: it is the starting point of the conversation, not the answer.

What weighs most is not your turnover, it is the nature of your work. Two self-employed people with the same turnover can need limits that differ by a factor of twenty. The specifics of the trade, the contracts signed and the region where you work change the required limit considerably: this is a conversation to have with your broker.

Indicative, not contractually binding.

350 000 €
50 k€5 M€
Suggested limit
1 250 000 €
Indicative premium
€900 to €1,700 / year

A file that halts a client's production already exceeds this level: we look at your framework contracts.

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Covered, or not covered

We show you both columns before you sign. It is the only way not to discover an exclusion on the day of the claim.

Covered

  • Error, omission, negligenceA professional fault that causes your client a financial loss.
  • Bodily injury to a third partyA visitor or client injured in the course of your work.
  • Property damage at the client'sWhat you damage while working, including on site.
  • Defence costs and loss adjustmentThe insurer takes on the defence of your interests in the event of a claim.
  • SubcontractorsOptional extension for the liability of those working for you.

Excludedded

  • Deliberate actsNo policy covers damage caused deliberately.
  • Your own propertyYour equipment and premises come under other policies.
  • Redoing defective workRedoing the work stays at your expense: it is the third party's loss that is covered.
  • Fines and penaltiesAdministrative or criminal penalties are never insurable.
  • Undisclosed past eventsAn event you already knew about when taking out the policy falls outside cover.

Limits by activity

In professional indemnity there are no three universal packages: the limit depends on the trade. Here are the orders of magnitude we come across.

Activity Entry level Most common High exposure
  • Graphic design, creative
    Image rights, print recall, campaign delay.
    Entry level: 125 k€
    Most common: 250 k€
    High exposure: 1 M€
  • IT freelancer, solo
    The loss comes from the client's business interruption.
    Entry level: 125 k€
    Most common: 250 k€
    High exposure: 1 M€
  • Interim manager
    Binding decisions taken on the client's behalf.
    Entry level: 250 k€
    Most common: 500 k€
    High exposure: 1,5 M€
  • Engineer, consultancy
    Dimensioning error, work to be redone.
    Entry level: 500 k€
    Most common: 1,5 M€
    High exposure: 3 M€
  • Medical profession
    Bodily injury: the limit is of a different order.
    Entry level: not applicable
    Most common: 5 M€
    High exposure: €5M and above
A textbook case

A wrongly dimensioned drawing, a wall to knock down again: 38 000 € at the client's.

This is not gross misconduct, it is a professional error. With professional indemnity cover, the insurer pays and takes on the loss adjustment. Without it, it comes out of your cash flow.

  1. 01

    The client claims

    You receive a claim. You call us before replying.

  2. 02

    We assess the file

    We check the cover, the limit, the excess and the date of the events.

  3. 03

    The loss adjustment

    The insurer appoints a loss adjuster. We follow the file and translate the findings for you.

  4. 04

    The settlement

    The third party is compensated, your defence costs are covered.

Une passerelle barrée par une colonne : le type d'erreur de conception que couvre la Professional indemnity
Transparency

How much does professional indemnity cost?

There is no single price: the premium is built on your real risk profile. The main levers:

Factor
Effect on the premium
Occupation
The number one factor. A graphic designer pays a fraction of what an architect or engineer pays.
Turnover
The higher the turnover, the greater the exposure, and so the premium.
Number of active staff
Every person producing work adds risk.
Use of subcontractors
Subcontracting shifts part of the risk: the insurer takes this into account, covering their liability and rights of recovery.
Limits and excess
A €2.5 million limit costs more than a €250,000 one. A higher excess lowers the premium but increases what you pay yourself.
Others
Claims history, years in business, where the work is carried out, the nature of client contracts.

As an order of magnitude, for €250,000 of cover and a one-person business, professional indemnity in Belgium ranges from €250 a year for a low-risk profile to €2,500 a year for the most exposed activities.

Indicative range
Annual premium, €250,000 of cover, one-person business
  • Designer, consultant €250 to €800
  • Manager, director €450 to €950
  • Accountant, tax adviser €600 to €1,200
  • Architect, engineer €950 to €2,500

Scale from €0 to €2,500 per year. Actual amounts depend on turnover, headcount, subcontracting, limits and insurer. Ranges to be confirmed against market rates.

The timeline of a claim

Our timing commitments, from the first call to settlement.

Day 0
Your call
We take the notification and tell you what not to write to the client.
48h
File opened
Notification sent to the insurer, cover and limit checked.
1 to 30 days
Loss adjustment
The insurer sets the date, depending on how urgent the file is. We translate the adjuster's findings for you.
Then after
Settlement
The third party is compensated, your defence costs are covered.
Only the first two timings are commitments from the firm. The loss adjustment is carried out by the insurer: we have no control over its date, which is 1 to 30 days after the file is opened, depending on urgency. The settlement time then depends on the findings.

Compulsory for whom?

Frequently asked questions

What we are asked most often

Your case is not here? Ask us, we answer within 48 hours.

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  • Professional indemnity or public liability: what is the difference?

    −

    Public liability covers damage linked to your presence and your equipment (a client slipping on your premises, a ladder falling on a car). Professional indemnity covers the consequences of the work itself: a miscalculation, bad advice, a culpable delay. Many activities need both.

  • Is it compulsory for my activity?

    +

    It is for regulated professions: architects, lawyers, accountants, brokers, medical professions, and since 2007 for building contractors on certain works. For everyone else it is not required by law, but it is often required by your clients or by a public authority awarding a contract.

  • How much does it cost?

    +

    The premium depends on turnover, sector, the limit chosen and claims history. A self-employed person in services generally starts at a few hundred euros a year, a technical consultancy much more. We price on your actual activity, not on an average.

  • Which limit should you choose?

    +

    The right yardstick is not your turnover but the largest plausible loss your work can cause. An IT consultant who halts a client's production quickly exceeds their annual turnover. We start from that scenario, then calibrate.

  • I am switching insurer: am I covered for the past?

    +

    This is the most misunderstood point. Most policies cover claims made during the period of insurance for events occurring after a retroactive date. Without a retroactive cover clause, an old file that resurfaces after the switch can fall into a gap. We check this systematically before moving a policy.

  • What if the claim arrives after the policy ends?

    +

    Many policies include run-off cover (often 36 months) for claims arriving after the activity has stopped. If you wind down your business, this is a clause to check before cancelling, especially in consultancy and construction.

Where to meet us

Four offices, one number

We meet at the office or come to you. One contact for all four addresses.

+32 83 23 17 23
Map of Belgium showing the four Cinassur offices: Ciney, Dinant, Eghezée and Brussels Brussels Eghezée Ciney Dinant

Also worth reading

Tell us what you do, we will find the right cover.

We work with more than 40 insurers: we put those covering your actual activity in competition, and we explain the exclusions before you sign.

Request a quote → +32 83 23 17 23
FSMA-registered broker no. 111917 Jacis SRL, trading as Cinassur · RPM Liège, Dinant division