Hendrickson Insurance
Hendrickson Insurance
Consultant professional liability insurance in Florida covers a client's claim that your advice, your report or the work you delivered caused a financial loss. General liability does not cover that claim, and the cheap one-class quote screens sell consultants a policy that covers one of the three things the firm does. Hendrickson Insurance in Sarasota writes consultant E&O for management, safety, HR, marketing, environmental and technical consultants across the Gulf Coast and statewide. The broader coverage is on professional liability insurance in Florida; the story of what a one-code quote missed is on commercial general liability insurance in Florida.
Consultant professional liability in Florida, in one paragraph. No Florida statute requires a consultant to carry E&O; the client's contract does, usually at $1,000,000 per claim, with a certificate before the engagement starts. Section 95.11(5)(b) of the Florida Statutes gives a professional malpractice claim two years, running from when the error is discovered or should have been discovered, and limits it to persons in privity with the professional. A written contract claim under 95.11(2)(b) has five years. A claim can therefore arrive years after the work, which is why the policy is written on a claims-made form and why the retroactive date and tail matter more than the limit. The policy is rated on what the firm actually does, and a consultant whose work touches bodily injury, a safety consultant, an environmental consultant, an engineer in a consulting role, is a different market from a management consultant whose worst case is a lost contract. The application is here; Dennis reads it himself.
A Certified Safety Professional came to this office with a cheap single-class quote in hand. The firm did three things: safety consulting, training and on-site inspections, and the quote had rated the first one. Several carriers declined the full picture once it was described honestly, and the wholesaler's answer was that most markets wanted $10,000 or more for a program that would actually respond to an injury claim arising from the firm's advice. Dennis placed professional liability with Gemini at $1,000,000, with defense costs outside the limit, so a lawsuit's legal bills do not consume the money meant for the claim. The full account is in the cheap-quote coverage gap post. The lesson for every consultant: the quote screen asks for one class and the business does three things, and the policy pays on the class it was rated for.
Claims-made, retroactive date, tail. Nearly every E&O policy is claims-made: it pays for claims first made during the policy period, for work done after the retroactive date. Let the policy lapse, or switch carriers and accept a new retroactive date, and every engagement before that date is uninsured. A firm that moves carriers keeps the original retroactive date in writing or buys tail coverage from the old carrier. This is the clause Dennis Hendrickson checks first on any E&O policy a prospect sends in. Defense inside or outside the limit. A $1,000,000 policy with defense inside the limit is a $1,000,000 policy for the lawyers and the claim together. On a professional claim the legal bills come first, so a policy with defense outside the limit, or a separate defense limit, is worth more than a larger limit with defense inside it. The proposal states which one each option is.Get a quote
Two questions tell us whether we are the right fit. If we are, Dennis Hendrickson reads your application himself.
Get a consultant E&O quote →| Practice | Form | The claim it is written for |
|---|---|---|
| Management, strategy, operations | Miscellaneous professional liability | Economic loss claims: a lost contract, a failed implementation, advice that cost money. Admitted market, rated on revenue. |
| Safety, environmental, industrial hygiene | Specialty E&O with bodily injury | A worker hurt after the consultant's program or inspection. Standard forms exclude bodily injury; the policy has to be written to include it, usually surplus lines. |
| HR and recruiting | Miscellaneous E&O plus EPLI exposure | A placement that fails, a background check that was wrong, a client sued over a hire the consultant advised. See the recruiting E&O application. |
| Marketing, advertising, PR | Media and E&O combined | Copyright and trademark claims, defamation, a campaign that did not deliver. Media liability is separate from standard E&O. |
| Engineering and technical consulting | Design professional E&O | A calculation, specification or inspection that was wrong. Section 558.0035 limits an employed design professional's individual liability only if the firm maintains the E&O insurance the contract requires. Apply at the engineers and architects application. |
| IT and software consulting | Technology E&O plus cyber | See IT consultant insurance in Florida. |
Across all of them, the contract requirement controls: $1,000,000 per claim is the usual floor, $2,000,000 for larger clients and public work, with the client as certificate holder and 30 days notice of cancellation. A consultant who sends the insurance section of the biggest client's contract with the application gets a quote built to it the first time.
Send it through the E&O application or email the declarations to dennis@hendricksonins.com. Dennis Hendrickson reads every submission himself and responds the same business day in most cases.
No statute requires it. Clients do: most consulting contracts require E&O at $1,000,000 per claim with a certificate before work starts. And the exposure is real whether or not a contract demands it, because a malpractice claim under section 95.11(5)(b) runs two years from when the client discovers the error.
No. General liability covers bodily injury and property damage to others; it excludes professional services. A client's financial loss from a report, a recommendation or a missed deadline is an E&O claim. A consultant who carries only a BOP has no coverage for the work the business is paid to do.
A management consultant with no claims and ordinary contract limits is the lowest-rated profile. A safety, environmental or technical consultant whose advice can lead to bodily injury is a specialty placement; in the file described on this page, carriers wanted $10,000 or more for that program and it was placed at $1,000,000 with defense outside the limit. The quote is the only real number.
Inside the limit, legal fees reduce the amount left to pay the claim. Outside the limit, the carrier pays defense in addition to the policy limit. On professional claims the legal bills come first, so defense outside the limit is the more valuable form at the same limit.
Yes. Hendrickson Insurance writes consultants across Florida, in the admitted market for standard practices and through the wholesale market for specialty exposures. Dennis Hendrickson reads the application and the contract requirements himself.
Apply online or call 941-957-2796. Have your current dec pages with the retroactive date, claims history and the client contract requirements ready.
Dennis Hendrickson changed a New Jersey state tennis rule at 17 and played four years of Division I tennis at UNC Charlotte. Today he writes both the commercial and the personal insurance for Gulf Coast owners himself, and he works a renewal or a claim the way he played: nothing conceded, no point given away.
When you apply, he answers. Every application goes straight to Dennis. He reads it himself and responds the same business day in most cases, always within 48 hours.
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