Basic Information on Professional Liability Insurance for Architects - By: Allan Michael Taylor

You may have heard of the term "professional liability insurance" a few times before and you may have wondered what it meant. Basically, this kind of insurance is used by a lot of professionals in many different fields to help protect them from people who may try to sue them for negligence. This type of an insurance policy is sometimes termed Professional Indemnity Insurance and the name of this insurance can change according to the profession that is using it. For example, if the professional liability insurance is used for those in the medical industry, this can be called medical malpractice insurance.

When it comes to the world of architecture, an architect's professional liability insurance can cover a long list of possibilities and this can often depend on what kind of coverage an architect wants with his policy. Usually, with an architect's professional liability insurance, the policy can help cover certain problems that may arise with the architect's work after the policy was obtained. Architects should know that policies can only cover them for lawsuits regarding incidents that happen after the policy was obtained and these cannot cover lawsuits that arise from previous work that they did before the policy was enacted.

An architect's professional liability insurance is called an Errors and Omissions Insurance or E&O Insurance. This kind of an insurance can help protect architects from claims that a third party makes regarding alleged damages that are incurred due to the architect's inability to properly fulfill his duty. This insurance covers the cost of litigation and of defending the architect's design as well as the monetary damages that need to be awarded to the complainant should the architect be found to be guilty and did not perform his duties as he should have.

These architect's professional liability insurance policies are often paid for annually and should be kept up to date to help keep the architect covered in case any claims are made on his work in the following years. If an architect neglects to renew his policy or opts to cease continuing his insurance policy and decides to cancel it, he will then lose all coverage for previous work that he did which was covered by this insurance policy that he decided to cancel. He can only get his previous work covered by a new policy if he includes a "prior acts coverage" clause on his new architect's professional liability insurance.

The reason why an architect should make sure that he is insured with this type of a policy is basically to protect him from claims made on his work, whether these claims be legitimate or not. Architects are humans after all and no human is infallible so it is best that architects, as well as other professionals, protect themselves from the possibility of claims made against any errors in judgments that they make. This kind of a policy can protect a person from being forced to pay for litigation or to pay for damages, whether these are actual or perceived, as long as the policy is kept active.

About the Author

Robert McDonough is currently completing an internship as the in-house blogger for Fenner & Esler Insurance Agency, a boutique insurance brokerage that specializes in providing professional liability insurance for engineers and architects.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Allan-Michael-Taylor/45501

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