Do you have clients who pay you to provide them with advice and/or services? Then it’s a good idea for you to take 10 minutes to read the following. It answers questions about professional liability insurance, if you need it, how much you need and where to get it.
What Is Professional Liability Insurance?
Professional liability insurance protects you, your business and your employees when clients claim someone in your company made a mistake while providing professional services that caused them financial loss and/or damaged their reputation.
What Does Professional Liability Insurance Cover?
Professional liability insurance covers financial loss, legal fees and defense costs, and settlements and judgments when clients sue you and your business because they think you made a mistake that cost them money or injured their reputation.
How Much Is Professional Liability Insurance
How much professional liability insurance costs depends on your industry, as well as the scope and size of your company, number of clients, claims history and location. Professional liability insurance usually costs $500 to $1,000 per employee, per year.
Who Needs Professional Liability Insurance?
Accountants, lawyers, financial advisors and realtors are just a few of the professionals who need professional liability insurance. Professionals who advise and/or provide services to clients or who sign a client contract saying they are covered need professional liability insurance.
How to Get Professional Liability Insurance
Professional liability insurance is as complex as it is important. That’s why it’s essential to get professional liability insurance from a provider who specializes in this type of coverage. Purchasing a policy from an agent who has little or no experience in this area could leave you seriously unprotected.
Is Malpractice Insurance the Same As Professional Liability Insurance?
Malpractice insurance is considered professional liability insurance for medical professionals, such as doctors, nurses and dentists.
Professional liability insurance is the term used for accountants, lawyers, CPAs, realtors, IT consultants and other professionals who provide services and/or advice to clients.
When Is Professional Liability Insurance Needed?
Whether you need professional liability insurance or not depends on your industry and your state. It also depends on your clients. Many clients require you to carry professional liability insurance to protect them from lawsuits that might result from work you do for them.
When Is Professional Liability Insurance Required?
Some clients have it in their contracts that professional liability insurance is required if you want to work with them. Also, certain states require it, and it is highly recommended for high-risk industries such as law, finance, IT and real estate, among others.
Do You Need Professional Liability Insurance in Florida?
No. You are not required to carry professional liability insurance in Florida. However, everyone makes mistakes and claims against professionals are on the rise. When weighed against the high costs of legal defense, court costs and judgments, professional liability insurance is a smart investment.
Conclusion
All it takes is one missed filing deadline, an inadvertent breach of confidentiality or one piece of inaccurate advice for one of your clients to sue you. Defending yourself and your company not only disrupts your business, it can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, defense costs, settlements and judgments. Unfortunately, even if you did nothing wrong, you still incur out-of-pocket expenses for your defense when you don’t have professional liability insurance.
That’s why having professional liability insurance that matches your specific needs is essential to protecting your personal assets and your company’s current and future assets. It’s also why it’s important to partner with an insurance advisor, like the ones at JAISIN, who specialize in professional liability insurance. Their first priority is always to help you protect what’s yours.
It’s really not a matter of if you’ll be sued it’s a matter of when. Regrettably, when things go wrong, people look for someone to blame. One of the benefits of having your professional liability insurance with JAISIN is that not only can we insure you, we can advise you on how to manage your risks to help you remain claim-free.
Get a quote or call JAISIN Insurance Solutions today to talk with one of our professional liability insurance advisors.
