Professional indemnity insurance for freelancers used to be a large client's requirement and is now a routine one. Design studios, agencies, publishers and corporate clients all put it in their standard terms, and a freelancer without it increasingly finds the conversation stops before the work starts.
Why clients ask
A freelancer's output is relied on: copy that made a claim the client could not substantiate, a design that infringed somebody's rights, a translation that changed the meaning of a contract, a report the client acted on. The client's loss is financial and the freelancer's fee is small by comparison, which is exactly the mismatch insurance exists for.
Holding it across many small jobs
One annual policy covers all your work within the declared activities, not one policy per client. Declaring the activities properly is what makes that work: a writer who also does consultancy, or a designer who also builds sites, has more than one activity and a policy naming only one may not answer for the other.
Intellectual property, which catches creative freelancers
A claim that delivered work infringed somebody's copyright, trade mark or design right is a common creative exposure and is not always covered as standard. Clients increasingly name it specifically. Check for an intellectual property section rather than assuming the general wording reaches it.
Gaps between jobs
Cover is claims made and freelancing is intermittent. A freelancer who lets the policy lapse over a quiet quarter leaves every previous piece of work uninsured against a claim arriving later. Continuous cover, or run off if the work genuinely stops, is the point of the product.
Questions people ask about professional indemnity insurance for freelancers
Do freelancers really need it?
Increasingly it is a condition of being engaged. Agencies, publishers and corporate clients put it in their standard terms.
Does one policy cover all my clients?
Yes, within the activities you declared. Declare everything you actually do, because an undeclared activity may not be covered.
Is copyright infringement covered?
Not always as standard. Creative freelancers should check for an intellectual property section, which clients increasingly name.
Can I cancel between contracts?
It is the common expensive mistake. Cover is claims made, so cancelling leaves completed work exposed to a later claim.