Professional Indemnity insurance Scheme Renewal – 2021 - 22

cost would have been to expose our clients to uninsured exposures for delay and bodily injury claims. The cost would have been to provide to our clients what amounts to an insurance product of questionable value. The future Our belief is that this is the last change needed to this aspect of cover. Critically, our insurer partners now share our belief that whatever the faults of the Building Safety Bill, it will bring about an environment which is objectively better than what has gone before. This is one of the cornerstones of our argument to preserve the more normalised cover our clients will enjoy for the work they do designing the buildings of today and tomorrow. Inevitably, this will again see Scheme clients enjoy much wider cover for fire safety claims than most of their peers. Our belief is that through the changes implemented to date and with the upcoming changes to safety legislation, that this divergence will be a sustainable one. As ever, we will continue to monitor the situation closely, report frequently on any developments, and work with the construction industry bodies, BIBA and other relevant stakeholders to try to effect the broad environmental changes which, as is becoming increasingly apparent, are required to resolve these issues. Cyber Liability clarification A further sign of our changing times is the increasing Cyber threats we are collectively facing. To comply with recent regulatory requirements around whether (and to what extent) insurance policies cover ‘cyber’ liability, our Scheme insurers will be introducing an exclusion for cyber liabilities and removing those modest extensions of cover in respect of the payment of crisis consultants’ fees and claims for breaches of data protection legislation around the use of personal data. We don’t believe that any of our clients have ever used the extensions to cover introduced and in place since 2014 but given the rising prominence of cyber liability and the potentially business critical importance of dedicated cyber insurance products, we report in more detail on those changes here. We hope that this overview provides a good understanding of the changes that will be introduced to our Scheme this year and the reasons behind the action being taken by insurers. As ever, should you have any questions then do please get in touch.