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Claims that an error or omission in professional work caused a client financial loss.
Accountant Professional Indemnity
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Accountant Professional Indemnity
Professional indemnity for accounting and tax practices.
Accounting claims usually arrive years after the work, when a position is reviewed or a transaction unwinds. Because cover responds on a claims-made basis, continuity matters as much as the limit.
What is it?
Accounting practices provide tax, compliance, audit, advisory and SMSF services under registration requirements that commonly mandate professional indemnity cover as a condition of practising.
What does accountant professional indemnity cover?
Cyber and client records
Incidents involving the financial and identity data a practice holds.
Regulatory response
Costs responding to investigations, where the wording provides for it.
What affects the cost?
- Fee income and client mix
- Services provided, especially audit and SMSF
- Registration and professional body requirements
- Claims history
- Limit and excess selected
Worth raising on the call
- Cover is claims-made, so run-off matters when a practice sells or winds up.
- Audit and SMSF work is rated differently from compliance work.
- Registration bodies often set a minimum limit.
Claims we are commonly asked about
Position amended years later
A capital gains or division 7A position taken in an earlier return is reviewed and amended, and the client claims the penalties, interest and professional costs of fixing it against the practice. Because the claim arrives years after the work, the policy in force when the claim is made is generally the one that has to answer.
Payment redirected by email fraud
A staff member acts on an emailed instruction that appears to come from a long-standing client and funds are sent to a fraudulent account. Whether this responds generally depends on how the wording treats social engineering and whether a cyber policy sits alongside the professional indemnity.
SMSF compliance breach alleged
An SMSF trustee says the fund breached a rule and lost concessional treatment because of documentation or advice prepared by the practice. SMSF work is commonly rated separately from compliance work, so whether it was declared in the proposal usually comes up early in the claim.
Worth confirming in the wording
- Worth confirming exactly which services fall inside the definition of professional services, since audit, SMSF, financial product advice, corporate advisory, bookkeeping and virtual CFO work are often described and rated differently.
- Worth confirming the retroactive date on the policy, because a claims-made policy generally responds only to work performed after that date and practice acquisitions can quietly leave earlier years unprotected.
- Worth confirming how the wording treats the client's own tax liability, penalties and interest, since tax that would have been payable in any event is commonly not treated as insured loss even when the penalty is.
Common questions
Do I have to hold professional indemnity as a registered tax agent?
Registered tax and BAS agents are generally required by the Tax Practitioners Board to maintain professional indemnity insurance meeting its requirements, and professional bodies such as CA ANZ and CPA Australia set their own conditions for public practice. Requirements change, so it is worth confirming the current minimums directly with the relevant body rather than relying on last year's figure.
What does claims-made mean and why does it matter?
A claims-made policy responds to claims first made and notified during the period of insurance, regardless of when the work was done, provided the work falls after the retroactive date. In practice that means an unbroken chain of cover matters more than the limit you held in any single year, and a gap can leave years of past work unprotected.
Do I need run-off cover when I sell or wind up the practice?
Because accounting claims often surface years after the engagement, cover generally needs to continue after the practice stops trading, and that is what run-off does. It is usually arranged for a set number of years at the point of sale or retirement, and it is much harder and more expensive to organise after the policy has already lapsed.
What drives accountant professional indemnity pricing?
The main drivers are fee income and client mix, the services provided and particularly audit, SMSF and advisory work, the limit and excess selected, the number of principals and staff, registration and professional body requirements and claims history. Two practices with the same turnover can price very differently based on service mix alone.
General information only. Cover, limits and exclusions depend on the PDS, TMD, eligibility, underwriting and the policy terms. See professional indemnity insurance for the wider picture.
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