Hendrickson Insurance
Hendrickson Insurance
Professional liability insurance (also called errors and omissions or E&O) protects Florida professionals against client claims that your advice, services, or work caused financial loss. Different from general liability. We write professional liability for Florida consultants, accountants and CPAs, real estate agents and brokers, IT services, architects and engineers, designers, marketing agencies, and other professional service businesses across Sarasota, Bradenton, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Venice, and Lakewood Ranch.
Business consultants, strategy advisors, management consultants, marketing consultants. Coverage for claims your advice caused client financial loss.
Florida CPAs and accounting firms. Coverage for tax preparation errors, audit issues, advisory services. Often combined with cyber.
Florida real estate agents, brokers, and brokerages. E&O specific to real estate licensing requirements and Florida real estate market exposures.
Software developers, IT consultants, managed service providers, web development. Tech E&O often combined with cyber liability in a single Tech E&O policy.
Graphic designers, web designers, marketing agencies, branding firms. Coverage for IP infringement claims, missed deadlines, deliverable disputes.
Florida-licensed architects and engineers. Coverage for design errors, code violations, and construction-related claims. Often required by contract.
If you are a Florida-licensed engineer, architect, surveyor, or a design-build contractor, your professional liability exposure is different from a consultant's, and it is almost always written into your contracts. This coverage is usually called design professional E&O or architects and engineers (A&E) professional liability. It responds when a claim alleges that a design error, a miscalculation, a code violation, a missed specification, or a negligent professional service caused a client or third party a financial loss. General liability does not cover this. A slab that cracks because of a design defect is an E&O claim, not a GL claim, and adjusters draw that line hard.
On the Gulf Coast the exposure is sharper than most of the country. Florida's wind and flood loads, the 2020 Florida Building Code and its high-velocity hurricane zone provisions, threshold-building inspection requirements, and the post-Surfside milestone inspection and structural reserve rules all raise the standard of care a design professional is held to. A structural engineer stamping drawings for a coastal building in Sarasota or a condo recertification in the Tampa Bay area is signing off on work that will be scrutinized if anything fails. That signature is exactly what E&O protects.
It is also contractual. General contractors, developers, public owners, and lenders routinely require design professionals to carry E&O at a stated limit, commonly 1 million to 5 million per claim, name the requirement in the agreement, and provide a certificate before work starts. Some public and institutional projects require project-specific policies on top of a firm's practice policy. If you cannot show the coverage, you do not get the job. We make sure the policy you carry actually matches what your contracts demand, not just a number that looked fine at renewal.
We write design professional E&O for solo practitioners and firms across Sarasota, Bradenton, Tampa, St. Petersburg, and the wider Gulf Coast, including engineers, architects, land surveyors, landscape architects, interior designers, and design-build contractors. Call 941-952-7991 with your discipline, your revenue, your project types, and any contract limit you have to meet, and we will place it correctly.
Almost all E&O is written claims-made, which means the policy that pays is the one in force when the claim is made, not when the work was done. Let the policy lapse and a claim on last year's work has no home. Continuous coverage is the whole game.
Your policy only covers work performed after its retroactive date. When you switch carriers, keep the retro date intact or you punch a hole in coverage for everything you did before the new date. We protect the retro date on every move.
Because it is claims-made, retiring, selling, or closing the firm can leave you exposed to claims that arrive later. An extended reporting period, the tail, keeps you covered for work already done. Design professionals especially need this given long project statutes.
On most E&O policies, defense costs erode your limit rather than sitting on top of it. A long dispute can eat six figures in legal fees before a dime is paid to the claimant. It is why the limit you choose, and the deductible, matter more than the premium.
General liability covers bodily injury and property damage, someone slips in your office or you damage a client's property. E&O covers financial harm from your professional work: bad advice, a design error, a missed filing, a negligent service. A design flaw that causes a structure to fail is an E&O claim, not a GL claim. Most professionals need both.
The state does not mandate E&O to hold a professional license, but in practice it is required by your contracts. General contractors, developers, public owners, and lenders almost always require design professionals to carry E&O at a set limit and provide a certificate before work begins. Some projects also require a project-specific policy. Without it, you do not win the work.
It turns on discipline, revenue, project types, limit required, claims history, and years in practice. A solo residential designer and a structural engineer stamping coastal high-rises are priced worlds apart. We shop the professional lines market, including admitted and surplus carriers, to fit the limit your contracts demand. Call 941-952-7991 with your details for a real number.
E&O is claims-made, so it only covers work done after the retroactive date. It exists to prevent buying coverage for problems you already know about. The risk comes at renewal or when switching carriers: if the retro date resets, everything you did before it becomes uninsured. We keep the retro date intact whenever you move policies.
Usually yes. Because the coverage is claims-made, a claim on your past work can surface years after you stop practicing, and nothing responds unless a policy is in force. An extended reporting period, the tail, covers claims reported after the policy ends for work already performed. Design professionals need it most, given how long project liability can run.
Tech E&O is often packaged with cyber as a combined Tech E&O policy.
02 / Related CoverageEmerging coverage for AI exposures that traditional E&O often excludes.
03 / Related CoverageAbove professional liability for catastrophic claims (where structure allows).
04 / Related CoverageDistinct exposure; E&O covers professional services, D&O covers board decisions.
Call 941-952-7991 or schedule online. Have your profession, revenue, and claims history ready.