Assessor Insurance, in General

Insurance for assessors is about who bears the cost when something goes wrong. The main category clients hear about is professional indemnity insurance, which covers claims arising from professional errors, such as a negligently incorrect assessment that causes financial loss, subject to the policy's terms, limits and exclusions. Public liability insurance, which covers injury or property damage during a visit, is a separate category, and an assessor may hold one, both, or neither, depending on scheme requirements, employment status and business model. Understanding which categories exist, and which a scheme requires, helps clients ask the right questions without assuming a level of protection that does not exist.

Scheme requirements are the starting point. Some accreditation schemes require assessors to hold professional indemnity insurance as a condition of accreditation, with minimum limits and evidence on joining and renewal, while others place insurance responsibility on the employing firm rather than the individual, or require it only for certain strands or services. An employed assessor working for a firm is typically covered by the firm's policy, while a self-employed assessor holds their own. A client should therefore ask about the arrangement that actually covers the work, whether individual or firm, rather than assuming one form.

What insurance covers, and what it does not, matters as much as its existence. Professional indemnity policies typically cover negligent errors in professional services, but they exclude deliberate dishonesty, work outside the insured scope, and claims made after a policy has lapsed without run-off cover, among other exclusions that vary by policy. A policy limit also caps the amount payable, and a claim that exceeds the limit, or that falls within an exclusion, may not be fully compensated. Clients should therefore treat insurance as a safety net with limits, not as a guarantee that any loss will be fully recovered.

For clients, the practical insurance check is proportionate. For a routine transaction EPC, confirming that the assessor is accredited through a scheme, and asking whether insurance is held as the scheme requires, is usually sufficient. For a high-value or complex assessment, such as a portfolio, a new-build programme or a retrofit baseline that will drive large expenditure, asking for the insurer, the limit and the scope in general terms, without demanding policy documents that are commercially sensitive, is reasonable. A reputable assessor or firm should be able to confirm the arrangement without evasion.

Before booking, ask: are you covered by professional indemnity insurance for this work, through your own policy or your firm's, and does your scheme require it. Note the answer with the booking details. After an error is discovered, act promptly: notify the assessor and scheme in writing, preserve evidence, and seek advice on remedies, because insurance claims and scheme complaints have their own timescales and evidence needs, and delay can weaken both.

Also distinguish insurance from other protections. Accreditation scheme complaints can lead to correction, retraining or removal, but they do not themselves pay compensation. Consumer law may give rights where services were not carried out with reasonable care, independently of insurance. Insurance, scheme redress and legal rights are separate tracks, and a client with a significant loss should consider all three, with professional advice where sums justify it.

By place, insurance requirements follow schemes and national law. UK assessor schemes set their own insurance expectations, while EU national certifier schemes set theirs under national arrangements. A client engaging an assessor abroad should check the national scheme's insurance position rather than assuming UK requirements apply, and should note that policy limits and consumer protection law also differ by country.

For installers and other building professionals, insurance categories and requirements differ again, and a client commissioning a package involving several roles should check insurance for each role, not assume that one firm's policy covers another firm's work.

A common mistake is to assume that accreditation alone implies full insurance cover for any loss, when accreditation and insurance are separate, and cover depends on policy terms. Another mistake is to demand detailed policy documents for a routine assessment, which reputable firms may reasonably decline to share in full, while still confirming cover in general terms.

A further mistake is to delay raising an error while deciding about insurance, and thereby to miss scheme complaint deadlines or to allow evidence to fade. Raising the error promptly with the assessor and scheme protects both complaint and insurance routes, whatever the eventual remedy.

Keep the assessor's details, scheme, insurance confirmation note, certificate and error evidence together, with dates. That file supports any complaint, claim or legal advice that follows.

Questions to ask include: what insurance covers this work, through whom, and what should I do promptly if I discover an error. Those questions give insurance its proper, limited place.