Your advice moves their money — and their blame
Clients hire you to make the call: which platform, which migration path, which vendor. When a recommendation or an implementation goes sideways and it costs them, the finger points at the consultant. Professional indemnity and cyber cover, built for IT advisory work.
Where an IT consultant gets exposed
Your risk isn't a line of code — it's a decision. The system you recommended, the migration you scoped, the vendor you vouched for. If the client can argue your advice fell short and they lost money, that's a professional indemnity claim, and standard business cover won't answer it.
The platform recommendation that didn't scale
You advise a growing client to move onto a particular platform and lead the selection. Six months in it can't handle their volume, and re-platforming costs them time, licences and lost trading.
They argue a competent consultant would have seen the ceiling coming, and bill you for the cost of switching.
The implementation that overran
You scope and manage a systems implementation. Requirements you signed off turn out to be wrong, the project runs months late, and the client's operations are disrupted while it drags on.
They claim breach of your engagement and seek the cost of the overrun and the business interruption.
The breach on a system you set up
You configure a client's cloud environment and access controls. A misconfiguration is exploited and client data is exposed, triggering Privacy Act notification obligations and an OAIC enquiry.
The client says your setup was the cause and looks to you for the response costs.
Who's going to ask you for it
It's how you win the engagement
For consultants, cover is usually a condition of being engaged at all:
- Client consulting agreements commonly require $1M–$5M professional indemnity, scaling with the size of the engagement.
- Government and enterprise advisory panels set minimum PI and cyber limits to get on the panel.
- Recruitment and consulting agencies need a current certificate of currency before they place you.
No certificate, no start date — the cover often has to be in place before you can sign.
The exclusion consultants assume is covered
Watch two things. First, guaranteed outcomes: if you promise a specific result — a savings figure, an ROI, a go-live date as a warranty — a claim that you didn't hit the guarantee is about a contractual promise, not negligent advice, and insurers generally won't cover it.
Second, known circumstances: a dispute you were already aware of before taking out cover is excluded. Professional indemnity responds to what emerges while you're insured.
Common questions
I only give advice — where's my risk?
Advice is exactly the risk. Professional indemnity exists for the claim that your recommendation was negligent and cost the client money. It's the core cover for any advisory work.
How is this different from cover for a developer?
A developer's exposure is mostly in the code they ship; a consultant's is in the decisions and advice. ICT cover carries professional indemnity for both, plus cyber, so it fits whether you're building or advising.
What limit do I need?
Take it from your engagement terms or the panel requirement — they'll state a minimum, often $1M–$5M. If a contract's insurance clause is unclear, we'll read it with you before you buy.
A client needs a certificate of currency before I start — how quickly?
Once bound, a certificate is fast to issue. If a start date is waiting on it, let us know and we'll prioritise it.
Does it cover advice I gave before I was insured?
Professional indemnity is claims-made — it generally responds to claims made while you're insured, provided you weren't already aware of the problem. It's best to have cover in place before a dispute surfaces.