Your name is on everything the client publishes
Your name ends up on whatever the agency delivers, whether that's a campaign, a build, or a piece of content published on a client's behalf. When something goes wrong, the agency wears the blame, even for work a freelancer delivered under your name. Professional indemnity, cyber and media liability cover, built for agency work.
Where a digital agency actually gets exposed
Agency work spans creative, content and technical delivery, and the exposure follows all three. If a client can argue your campaign, build or content cost them money or reputation, that's a claim, and standard business cover won't answer it.
The campaign that took the site down on the biggest sales day
You launch a campaign for a client, tied to a CMS update your team pushed live the same day. A conflict in the update crashes the site during the campaign's peak traffic window.
The client loses the sales the campaign was built to drive, and holds the agency responsible for the timing of the change.
The content that got the client sued
Content your team publishes on a client's behalf turns out to defame a third party or infringe someone else's copyright. It might be a blog post, an ad, or just a comment thread nobody moderated closely enough.
The client is threatened with legal action and looks to the agency, since you produced and published the content.
The subcontractor's code that failed
You bring in a freelance developer to build a feature for a client project. The code they deliver has a serious flaw that costs the client money.
The client's contract is with the agency, not the freelancer, so the claim comes to you regardless of who wrote the code.
Who's going to ask you for it
It's how you win the bigger clients
For agencies, cover is frequently a condition of the engagement, especially as clients scale:
- Brand and client MSAs commonly require professional indemnity, cyber and media liability limits before signing.
- RFPs and tenders for larger clients set minimum insurance requirements just to be considered.
- Subcontracting under bigger agencies flows their own insurance requirements down to you.
The exclusion agencies assume is covered
The most common trap is treating agency work as "creative, not professional services" and relying on a general business policy alone. A claim that your campaign, build or content caused a commercial or reputational loss is a professional indemnity and media liability claim, whether the underlying work was creative or technical.
Work you subcontract out still needs to sit under your cover. The client's claim lands on the agency either way.
Common questions
We outsource some of our development, are we still covered if it fails?
Yes, provided the work is delivered under your engagement with the client. The client's contract is with you, so the claim comes to the agency regardless of who wrote the code, and your cover needs to respond to that.
Isn't this just professional indemnity?
PI covers the underlying work, but agencies also publish content and hold client data. ICT cover combines professional indemnity with cyber and media liability, so campaigns, builds and content are all carried under one policy.
What limit should I get?
Take it from your client MSAs or the tenders you're chasing. Larger clients often name $2M–$10M. If you're unsure, we'll read the requirement with you before you buy.
A tender needs a certificate of currency, how fast can I get one?
Once you're bound, a certificate is quick to issue. If a bid is waiting on it, tell us and we'll prioritise it.
Does it cover a campaign we ran before we were insured?
Professional indemnity is claims-made and usually responds to claims first made while you're insured, provided the issue wasn't already known to you. It's best to have cover in place before a dispute surfaces.