Personal Insurance
Business Insurance
Industry
What Architects Insurance Covers
Architects insurance covers the design, the documentation, the contract administration and the office of an architectural practice, a building design firm, an interior or landscape design studio or a drafting business. The core is professional indemnity, because what a designer sells is judgement, and a claim about judgement can arrive years after the building is finished.
The claims come from the building. A detail fails and water gets in. A specification is wrong and the material does not perform. A set of drawings misses a compliance requirement and the certifier refuses the occupancy permit. A cost estimate is relied on and the project runs over. The owner, the builder or a later purchaser sues, and the practice is in the claim whether or not the fault was theirs.
Registered architects in Victoria must hold professional indemnity insurance as a condition of registration, and most client agreements and head consultant contracts set a minimum limit. Design practices also hold public liability insurance for site visits and the studio, and cyber cover for the drawings and the client data that sit on their systems. Business interruption insurance pays the fee income lost after damage to the office.
Fortis Risk Solutions arranges architects insurance for practices across Australia from offices in Box Hill and Hawthorn, as part of our business insurance range. We look at the project types, the fee income, the contracts signed and the past projects still within the limitation period before approaching insurers, and we place the professional indemnity insurance with a retroactive date that covers all of them.
Who this covers
Businesses in this group include:
- Registered architects and architectural practices
- Building designers and draftspeople
- Interior designers and fit-out designers
- Landscape architects and designers
- Design and construct consultants
- Sole practitioners and retiring architects
If your business is not listed, ask us. The sections below are the starting point for any business in the group.
Architects Insurance: Cover Sections and Benefits
Architects Insurance FAQs
A policy that satisfies the registration board's requirements, with a limit that meets the client agreements and the head contracts the practice signs, a retroactive date covering every past project, and defence costs on top of the limit where available. The wording should cover design, documentation, contract administration and certification, because a claim can arise from any of them.
Yes, if the policy in force when the claim is made has a retroactive date earlier than the project. Professional indemnity is written on a claims made basis, so the policy that responds is the current one, not the one running when the drawings were done. Limitation periods for building claims run for years, which is why the retroactive date and continuous cover matter so much.
Claims keep arriving after the drawings stop, so a retiring architect needs run-off cover: professional indemnity kept in force for a period of years after the practice closes. Registration boards and professional bodies set expectations for how long. The cost falls each year as the exposure ages, and it is negotiated before the last policy lapses, not after.
The structure is the same and the rating is different. Building designers carry structural and compliance exposure similar to architects; interior designers carry specification, fit-out and procurement claims; landscape designers carry drainage and structural landscape risk. Each needs the activities declared accurately, because an undeclared activity is the first exclusion an insurer reaches for.
Only where the design and construct exposure is declared. A practice that also builds, or that novates to a builder under a design and construct contract, carries a different exposure from a pure design practice, and the professional indemnity wording has to say so. The construction side itself needs contract works insurance and public liability written for building work, which sits under our construction and trades insurance group.
Design wordings turn on retroactive dates, activity declarations, contractual liability and the treatment of cladding, certification and design and construct work. FRS helps you disclose the practice and the projects accurately, structure the limit to satisfy registration and client contracts, compare specialist professional insurers and act as your advocate when a claim arrives, however long after the project. The studio itself sits in a business insurance package, with cyber insurance for the drawings and the client files.
Talk to a broker about Architect and Design Insurance
Call 03 7046 3766 on weekdays between 9:30am and 6pm, email admin@fortisrisksolutions.com.au, or send an enquiry and a broker from our Box Hill or Hawthorn office will come back to you about architect and design insurance. Tell us what the business does and what the lease or contract asks for, and we take it from there.