Professional Indemnity Insurance in the Australian Market

The API has been made aware of a professional indemnity insurance (‘PII’) policy on the market, such as that covered in this article.
Members may be aware of a recent decision by insurers of the Coverforce PII policy to withdraw from the Australian valuation market. Many of our member firms were impacted by this sudden decision, which exposed them to significant operating risk as they scrambled to find appropriate cover in the short notice period they were provided with.
API worked diligently with over 50 firms who were directly impacted by this, and was able to step in, advocating for our members and protecting the business continuity of most of those impacted firms, facilitating continuous cover and the upholding of all client and regulatory insurance requirements in accordance with the Australian Property Institute Valuers Ltd Professional Standards Scheme (‘APIV Scheme’). We greatly appreciate the support and the cooperation from our industry partners to enable the continuity of cover.
When entering into business-critical agreements such as PII contracts, members and their associated entities, should exercise a high degree of caution and closely examine all pertinent details of the proposed PII policy against their past, current and future business activities to ensure that they will be appropriately and adequately covered. Further, members should ensure that the proposed PII policy is compliant with their PII obligations under the APIV Scheme to ensure that they are able to take full advantage of the twofold protection offered by their PII coverage and capped liability under their APIV Scheme membership.
We take this opportunity to remind members of the importance of participating in our APIV Scheme which provides protection and security for our members, as well as underpinning our long-term goal of certainty and viability of the PII markets for our members.
Our recent submission of the application for a new APIV 2021 Scheme will deliver significant commercial improvements in line with member driven recommendations and feedback, further strengthening this long-term goal. In developing the new APIV Scheme, API has considered issues facing members in this area and is working towards delivering a scheme suitable for the long-term needs and future objectives of the property industry.
As we have done throughout this year and prior, we will continue to work to protect, advocate on behalf of and support our members wherever we are able to. We look forward to continuing to work with you to strengthen our broad-based property profession.
For any advocacy issues, please contact [email protected].
Posted on October 15, 2020
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