Buying computer consultants indemnity insurance
Handling a large IT security operation or simply installing an effective firewall system is usually a fairly simple task, especially for a professional IT consultant. The right training and planning usually ensures everything goes smoothly and to the benefit of the client involved. But mistakes do happen, even when the best in the industry are carrying out the job. Losing a client’s data or accidentally damaging their network could lose a company a substantial amount of money in some circumstances. This leads many professionals to get computer consultants indemnity insurance as a precaution.
Although indemnity cover will not simply fix a problem immediately, it will pay the potentially large costs of hiring legal help to defend a case following a consultant’s mistake, omission, or act of negligence. How much financial help is given will depend on the individual policy as different levels of cover are available. For example, a consultant may decide they need £25,000, £50,000 or £100,000 of cover for potential costs, whereas a larger company with many employees might want protection up to £1 million or more, with premiums typically being priced accordingly.
Computer consultants indemnity insurance will also normally go beyond mere mistakes. It will cover a whole range of legal eventualities such as an action for defamation, an accusation that intellectual copyright has been infringed, and even cover for the costs of defending a claim for compensation following an act of dishonesty from an employee.
Sometimes a legal claim will arrive a long time after an event has taken place, and may even date back to when an insurance policy started. For example a computer consultant may start trading one month, complete several jobs for clients, finalise an insurance policy in the third month, and then receive a legal claim dating back to month one. Thankfully many insurers allow policyholders to select a ‘retroactive’ cover feature for such circumstances, which protects against historical claims. For the same reasons, ‘run off’ or ‘over run’ cover periods can normally be arranged for when a computer consultant changes jobs, stops trading, retires, or switches insurer. With almost every angle covered, a computer consultants indemnity insurance policy will therefore protect a professional against unfortunate legal pitfalls, allowing them to concentrate on completing contracts without worrying about the possibility of litigation if a mistake happens to be made.
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