Discuss Professional indemnity insurance necessary? in the Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

Welcome to ElectriciansForums.net - The American Electrical Advice Forum
Head straight to the main forums to chat by click here:   American Electrical Advice Forum

Chris

-
Reaction score
26
Morning all,
As of this week i have registered with Napit so for the work that i do for myself outside of the company is all legit and i can sign it off myself.

I was told by Napit that i would only require public liability insurance for the scope of work i do, however when on the phone with napit insurance it sounded like (and they made it sound like) i should get professional indemnity insurance too.

The scope of my work is entirely domestic.
Rewires/CU changes/EICR's/Part rewires/Kitchens. That sort of stuff!

Does anybody know if Professional indemnity insurance is something that i should buy as well or is the insurance company trying to make some extra £££?

Any advice/comments appreciated, thanks.
 
As I understand it, once you start doing EICRs, you're providing advice and guidance on the safety of an installation. Your public liability insurance covers you when you're on site, but it does not cover the words/reports you write.

This is where professional indemnity comes in.
 
PI Insurance is an insurance against a loss of money by your client for bad design or advice. So if you designed an installation and a fire were to occur due to the poor design your PL Insurance would cover the buildings and life and your PI Insurance would pay for your defence and any compensation claims for loss of profit through trading downtime.

It is up to you whether you feel you need this insurance. All depends on the advice you will give and how confident you are in your ability to do it.

It is a misconception that you need PI Insurance to carry out EICRs. EICRs are a statement of fact and should not include design detail or advice.
 
as above. PI insurance is to protect you from being sued by a client if you give them bad advice. couple of years ago, I advised a client that he did not need a rewire as all cables were pvc and tested OK, albeit with a few faults such as o/c cpc on ring,and upgrade of accessories and CU was recommended. after a lot of threats and blustering by client, , i contacted my insurers who advised forwarding all emails etc. once they had been in touch with client, he backed down and it went no further. boils down to the fact that your insurers have the clout and legal sharks to put clients off legal action.
 
Once again really helpful advice guys I will go for it, better safe than sorry!

If only it covered the bad advice of going for 'One drink after work'... :laughing:
 
I used to use Hiscox if I was on a contract that required for me to be insured.
 
I did a lot of work for the military, not electrical work. £2M PL and £5M PI wasn’t that expensive as I used the same company for all of our insurance.


I only had one claim against me, it ended in court where the claimant was imprisoned for fraud. It seemed I wasn’t the first he tried to screw.
 
From the 10-part Checklist For Electrician as listed in Annex A of the Scottish Government's Electrical installations and appliances in private rented properties guidance can be found this heading:

Evidence of competence to carry out an Electrical Installation Condition Report for the purposes of assessing the safety of electrical installations, fittings and fixtures in private rented property.

Under which there is this particular requirement:

I have professional indemnity insurance (£0.25 million is recommended for contractors undertaking electrical installation condition reporting)
 

Reply to Professional indemnity insurance necessary? in the Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

OFFICIAL SPONSORS

Electrical Goods - Electrical Tools - Brand Names Electrician Courses Green Electrical Goods PCB Way Electrical Goods - Electrical Tools - Brand Names Pushfit Wire Connectors Electric Underfloor Heating Electrician Courses
These Official Forum Sponsors May Provide Discounts to Regular Forum Members - If you would like to sponsor us then CLICK HERE and post a thread with who you are, and we'll send you some stats etc

Electrical Forum

Welcome to the Electrical Forum at ElectriciansForums.net. The friendliest electrical forum online. General electrical questions and answers can be found in the electrical forum.
This website was designed, optimised and is hosted by Untold Media. Operating under the name Untold Media since 2001.
Back
Top
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks useful features of our website. For the best site experience please disable your AdBlocker.

I've Disabled AdBlock