| If you're in the business of providing professional | | | | point of view, as a freelancer or a small consultancy, |
| advice or services, you owe a legal duty of care to | | | | that will only add to your problems if you don't have |
| your clients. It means, in practice, that if as a result | | | | any pi insurance. Why? Because the legal costs you'll |
| of something you do (or fail to do) in your | | | | incur in seeking to defend yourself could be ruinously |
| professional capacity the client suffers a financial loss, | | | | expensive. And, much as you might want to, you |
| you are liable for that loss. And it's this concept of a | | | | can't just ignore it if a claim is brought against you. |
| duty of care that makes professional indemnity | | | | The only alternative you have to defending yourself |
| insurance so important. | | | | is to admit liability. And that, if you don't have |
| In today's litigious business world, if something goes | | | | professional indemnity cover, could lead straight to |
| wrong, there's an instinctive response to find | | | | you having to pay out an even more ruinously |
| someone external to blame and to make that | | | | expensive sum in compensation. |
| someone pay. And increasingly, the mechanism for | | | | For large organizations, recourse to the law is a |
| achieving that is to allege negligence or, in other | | | | relatively easy option. For you and you business it |
| words, a failure to provide that all-important duty of | | | | could be a cost too far. So make sure you have the |
| care. | | | | indemnity insurance you need to protect yourself. |
| Of course, it can be difficult to prove. But from your | | | | |