What is management consultant professional indemnity?

February 28, 2009 · Filed Under management consultant professional indemnity 

Whatever your motivation for being a management consultant, you are likely to enjoy pressure and responsibility. Helping a company achieve its goals can be a rewarding experience, and the freedom and creativity working as a freelance brings can be more enjoyable than any fixed role in one company. But the tasks a management consultant takes on usually mean they have a certain degree of a company’s success in their hands. This means mistakes can be costly, even if they are rare occurrences. Management consultant professional indemnity is a type of cover which will protect you if you ever face an unpleasant legal claim due to something which has happened in the conduct of your business.

Normally, disputes can be sorted amicably. You may even agree a form of compensation without getting solicitors or lawyers involved. Of course, mistakes are not guaranteed and some firms will manage to go years without a dispute arising. But errors can happen, and in the right circumstances can cost a client an awful lot of money. In the worst circumstances they may be minded to sue for compensation, and management consultant professional indemnity will pay for the cost of legal help.

The benefits of this are obvious, as solicitors and lawyers are expensive to hire but are essential if you want to defend your case as effectively as possible. Should you lose the action, you may be ordered to pay compensation by a court, leading to even more expense. By the time a case got this far, the bill may have run into thousands of pounds or more. Indemnity cover pays not just your fees but also any compensation which might be awarded to a successful claimant, subject to the policy limitations.

Few companies, and particularly freelance management consultants, have the resources available to simply carry on paying out for legal help and expenses. That is why an insurance policy can save the company an awful lot of money in the wrong run, even if it involves a modest premium.

This kind of cover normally does not just protect you against mistakes you make. It also covers acts of negligence, omissions, breaches of confidentiality or copyright, and even allegations of defamation. Some policies even throw in public liability insurance, as an optional extra or incorporated into the cost of the policy. Policies can also be tailored to cover claims which arrive in future but which date back to something which happened a while ago – such is the slow nature of the legal process at times.

Just about everyone has mulled over how they would deal with a court case if one ever arose, and management consultant professional indemnity also delivers peace of mind that you will have the financial resources available should you ever be accused of making a costly mistake during your normal working practice.

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