Protecting planning consultants from less than £55* per year
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Planning consultant insurance covers a profession whose advice moves land values. A planning application that fails on an avoidable point, a condition missed in a consent, appeal advice that misjudged the inspector: when planning goes wrong, the client’s loss is measured in the site’s potential, not the consultant’s fee, and the claim lands on the professional who gave the advice. Professional indemnity insurance leads the policy for exactly that reason.
Professional Saver arranges business insurance for planning consultants and small planning consultancies from £55* a year, with public liability as standard and PI scaled to the schemes your advice steers. Get a quote online in five minutes; documents arrive the same day.
Professional indemnity insurance carries the defining risk for town planners and planning consultants: professional negligence claims over applications, appeals, representations and advice. If a client alleges your work caused them financial loss, a refused consent that competent advice would have secured, a breach of condition your monitoring missed, a site bought on planning advice that didn’t hold, professional indemnity insurance pays the compensation and covers legal costs for the defence. Defence is most of the story in planning, where outcomes involve committees, inspectors and politics, and separating your advice from everything else in the decision is an expensive argument to have without cover.
The Royal Town Planning Institute expects members offering planning services to carry appropriate PI, and clients, particularly developers and landowners, routinely name a required level in the appointment. PI insurance works on a claims made basis: the policy in force when the claim arrives answers, so cover should run continuously while past advice can still be challenged, which in planning means years.
Public liability insurance covers the physical side of the job: site visits, walkovers, committee attendance and public consultations. If a third party suffers injury or property damage around your work, public liability insurance covers the compensation and legal costs, with £1 million as standard and options up to £10 million.
Business equipment cover protects the kit that travels between office, site and hearings (£100 excess), and employers’ liability is usually a legal requirement once the consultancy employs anyone. We don’t sell standalone cyber insurance; a planning consultancy holding client site data and commercially sensitive schemes should say so at quote stage, which is basic risk management for the practice itself.
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Because planning decisions price whole sites. The difference between planning permission granted and refused can be most of a plot’s value. When advice is blamed for the wrong side of that line, the claim is scaled to the land, and PI insurance is what stands between it and the consultancy’s own accounts.
Because planning outcomes age slowly. Consents get implemented, conditions get discharged, and problems surface when something is built, sold or enforced against, often years after the advice. The continuity of your cover matters more than in almost any other consultancy.
Because appointments ask first. Developers, local authorities and framework panels require proof of PI at stated levels before instructing a planning consultancy. The certificate qualifies you for the work; ours is available online the day cover starts.
Every policy includes public liability, products liability, legal expenses and £10,000 of financial loss cover as standard, from £55* a year. You then shape the cover to the practice:
Worldwide liability cover for temporary work abroad is included for up to 14 days, excluding the USA and Canada.
From £55* a year for the base policy, with professional indemnity the main variable: the value of schemes your advice touches, the level of cover your clients require, the size of the consultancy, and your claims history. A sole practitioner advising householder applications sits at the affordable end; a consultancy steering strategic land promotion needs limits that respect the land values involved. There’s no broker chain to wait on: get a quote online, itemised in about five minutes, with monthly instalments available.
Town planning consultancy is the business of professional judgement about what land can become. Get a planning consultant insurance quote online from £55* a year, backed by an insurer rated AA- (Stable) by Standard & Poor’s, and protect your business for as long as your consents stand.
* Total number of live policies as of 31/10/2025
From only£55per year
From only£55per year
From only£55per year
From only£55per year
From only£55per year
From only£55per year
Start with the appointment, which usually names a figure; £1 million is the common floor and development clients often require £2 million or more. Then sense-check against the sites rather than the fees: the exposure on a mishandled consent is the value the land lost, which no fee note resembles.
The PI policy in force when a claim arrives responds, provided cover has run continuously since the advice was given. Planning claims habitually surface at implementation or enforcement, long after the invoice, which is why letting PI lapse between commissions is the one mistake this profession can’t afford.
PI answers for the professional service: applications, appeals and representations that allegedly caused financial loss. Public liability answers for physical presence: injury or damage around site visits and consultations. A planning consultant needs both because the job is both, and most weeks involve each.
Yes; a freelance planner carrying their own PI is the market norm, and consultancies engaging contractors should describe the arrangement at quote stage. Our consultants insurance page covers the wider consulting family if planning is one strand of a broader practice.
