Professional indemnity cover

Enigmaman

I have received a quote for professional indemnity cover. I am a self-employed translator and interpreter.

I was wondering if anyone knows of a good deal for PI, and even whether they think I need it. I am not a home owner and do not have a great deal of money or possessions either. Is there any point? I have had seven years of policies now and at over £200 a go they are not cheap.

TIA

Engimaman

the_optimist

That depends on what type of translations you do. I'm a self employed tutor and I also do the odd translations. As I don't translate legal documents, I have a small policy with Hiscox.
It is just as with any insurance, as long as you don't need them, you feel you're wasting your money. But what, if you get sued because you've translated something wrong.......?

dauphin

I imagine the insurance market for this is quite small and I doubt if you would find cover much cheaper, especially considering what PI cover costs for other professions.
Assuming you earn enough to pay tax, don't forget that the effective cost of the insurance is reduced because the premium is deducted in arriving at your taxable profit.
As to whether you can do without cover altogether:
First of all, do any of your clients or potential clients require you to have PI cover as a condition of giving you work? This might effectively make the decision for you.
Apart from that, have a think yourself about how likely it is that someone could suffer a loss as a result of an error on your part. Also consider how likely it is, given the nature of your work and your clientele, that anyone would sue you.
In view of what you say about your limited assets, I think it is unlikely that any commercial entity, if made aware at the outset of any claim that you had no insurance and negligible assets to meet a claim, would bother to pursue you. Such assets as you had would inevitably be swallowed up in costs, so that they would never be able to recover a penny of compensation from you. Of course, there is always the risk that somebody might decide to have a go at you just to prove a point, or out of vindictiveness, so you can never be 100% sure that you could fend off any claim by pleading "poverty".
And without PI insurance, you would have difficulty in defending a claim even where you were in the right, because you would find it difficult to bear the legal costs.
Apart from my first point about whether any clients require you to have insurance, it ultimately comes down to how much you value your peace of mind, and whether you are prepared to accept what is probably a very small risk of being bankrupted in exchange for not forking out for the insurance premium each year.
By the way, don't forget that PI cover is normally written on a "claims made" basis. A PI policy only covers claims made (or potential claims notified) while the policy is in force, so if you do not continue your cover either now or when you retire, you will no longer have any protection even in respect of work already carried out. Upon your eventual retirement, it might be possible to buy a "run-off" policy to cover this risk but again it will be up to you to assess whether it is worth it.

Enigmaman

Thanks for your full reply. I plumped for my renewal quote in the end. Hiscox quoted me cheaper but provided no cover for legal translations.