Victor O. Schinnerer, Chevy Chase, Md., and Company's A/E Risk Management Department recently released a resource guide for the clients of design professionals. The Client's Resource: Intro to Professional Liability Insurance explains commonly misunderstood facets of professional liability to combat client requests that insurance companies are sometimes unable to grant, such as additional insured provisions.

"Some clients fundamentally misunderstand professional liability," explains Joe Jones, Vice President and head of the department. "As a result, they make unreasonable demands of their design professionals, such as requiring contractual liability coverage or requiring a broader indemnity provision. This guide explains these requirements, in the hopes that clients will truly understand why their design professionals-and, in turn, the design professionals' insurance companies- are unable to comply with some requirements. We also hope this guide will help client's understand why it is in their interest to have contractual requirements that will be covered by the design professional's professional liability policy."

In addition to covering clients' common insurance requirements, the publication also touches on the technical aspects of professional liability-including claims-made policies and cancellation procedures-and benchmarking insurance requirements to demonstrate commonly-held limits.

The web-only publication is available to the public on www.PlanetRiskManagement.com.

Source: Victor O. Schinnerer, September 23, 2005

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