Energy Assessor and Energy Consultant Insurance

Professional indemnity first, because the claim that actually happens is that a certificate, calculation or recommendation was wrong and cost somebody money, with nothing physically damaged. Your accreditation scheme will usually require it and often states the limit. Then public liability for being in other people's property, employers' liability if you employ anyone at a £5 million statutory minimum, cyber for the data and register access you hold, equipment cover for measuring and thermal imaging kit, and legal expenses for unpaid fees and scheme audits. Run-off matters at the end, because an EPC is relied on for ten years.

In practice yes. It is not a legal requirement in the way employers' liability is, but accreditation schemes generally make it a condition of registration and commonly set a minimum limit, so you cannot lodge assessments without it. It is also the only cover that answers the realistic claim. Check what your own scheme requires rather than assuming a figure, because the required limit varies and a policy below it is a registration problem as well as an insurance one.

Because it is written on a claims made basis. The policy that responds is the one in force when the claim is made, not the one in force when you did the assessment. For an energy assessor that is a sharper issue than for most professions, because an EPC is valid for ten years and sits on a register with your name on it. A gap of a month can leave a claim about a five year old certificate with nothing to respond to, and switching insurer without carrying the retroactive date across can remove years of lodged work from cover.

Potentially yes, and the people relying on it are often not your original client. A rating used by a landlord to show a property meets a minimum standard, or by a buyer to budget from the recommendations, creates reliance that outlives the job. If the floor area was measured wrong or a construction assumption was applied to the wrong fabric, the loss is financial and professional indemnity is what answers it. What decides these disputes is your evidence: site notes, photographs, measurements, and the conventions you were working to at the time.

It is placed as professional indemnity for a consultancy rather than as a trade policy, and that market is reached largely through brokers rather than direct, with some schemes arranged around particular accreditation bodies. Availability is not usually the constraint. What separates placements is wording: the retroactive date, whether defence costs erode the limit, whether the limit is any one claim or aggregate, and whether the schedule describes the full range of what you produce rather than domestic EPCs alone.

Yes, and it is easy to overlook because the work feels finished. Certificates stay on the register and keep being relied on for up to ten years, so cancelling on your last working day leaves every assessment you ever lodged unprotected. Run-off is arranged at the point you stop and the premium normally steps down each year. Anyone buying your practice will ask about it.

It depends entirely on how the advice was worded. Professional indemnity covers negligence, so a recommendation made with reasonable skill and care that simply does not perform as modelled is a different thing from one that was wrong. The danger is wording that turns a projection into a promise: a guaranteed saving or a warranted rating imposes a stricter standard that most policies exclude. Modelled outcomes depend on how a building is occupied and run, and saying so plainly in the report is an accurate description rather than a get-out.

It can be one policy, and it has to be declared rather than assumed. Retrofit work sits inside a process with standards and measured outcomes attached, often with public funding, so there is a defined duty to follow a standard and somebody checking the result. Where moisture risk forms part of your assessment, the potential loss is damage to the building fabric rather than a disappointing bill, which is a different order of claim. A policy written for domestic EPCs is not thinking about any of that.