Design Judgment Is the Product — and the Exposure.
Protecting design professionals, firms, and their projects
Architecture and engineering firms sell professional judgment — plans, specifications, and calculations for the built environment — and their core risk isn't physical construction work but the economic loss a design error can cause. That makes professional liability the center of the program, with a severity and a time horizon few other professions match: a defect can surface years after a project is done. Add the contractual indemnities owners try to impose and the sealed, licensed responsibility for public safety, and a design firm needs coverage built specifically for design risk. This is a specialized corner of professional services insurance built for how architects and engineers actually get sued.
Properly structured coverage protects the firm, its licensed professionals, and the projects they design.
The Design Firm's Signature Exposures
The signature exposure is professional liability — errors-and-omissions — for design errors and omissions that cause construction defects, cost overruns, delays, or structural and safety failures. A miscalculated load, an omitted fire-safety spec, or conflicting drawings can trigger redesign, remediation, and loss-of-use claims, and latent defects often surface years after completion — the long tail that defines the class. The central legal defense is the standard of care: a firm is liable not for perfection but for performing as a reasonably prudent architect or engineer would under similar circumstances.
The biggest coverage gap is contractual. Owner-drafted indemnification clauses routinely expand a firm's obligations beyond common-law negligence — duty-to-defend, indemnity for non-negligent acts, indemnity to parties the firm never contracted with — and professional-liability policies exclude liability that "would not exist but for the contract." Those expanded obligations become out-of-pocket, which is why limiting indemnity to the firm's own negligence keeps it insurable.
Key Risks in Architecture & Engineering
Design firms face exposure related to:
Design errors and omissions causing construction defects and structural failures
Cost overruns and delays from incomplete or conflicting drawings
Latent defects that surface years after completion
Contractual indemnities that exceed common-law negligence and become uninsurable
Bodily injury arising from a design defect
Breach of project data, client information, or design intellectual property
Higher-severity specialty work — structural, geotechnical, high-rise, and condominiums
The high-severity, long-tail design-error claim is the exposure that most defines the firm.
Core Coverages for Architects & Engineers
A properly built design-firm program typically includes:
Professional Liability / A&E E&O — Covers defense and damages when a design error, omission, or negligent service breaches the standard of care and causes economic loss — the core policy, written claims-made with a retroactive date and tail.
General Liability — Covers third-party bodily injury and property damage on premises or from operations, and excludes professional design services.
Cyber Liability & Data Breach — Protects project data, client information, and design intellectual property against breach and ransomware.
Commercial Property & Business Income — Cover the office, computers, and plotters, and lost income after a covered event.
Workers' Compensation — Provides legally required coverage for staff, including site-visit exposure.
Project-Specific Professional Liability — Provides dedicated limits for a single large or high-risk project.
Employment Practices & Directors and Officers Liability — Address employment claims and firm-governance decisions.
Commercial Crime / Social Engineering — Covers employee theft and fraudulent-payment losses.
Umbrella / Excess Liability — Adds higher limits above general liability, auto, and employers' liability.
What's Commonly Overlooked
Design-firm programs are most often weakened by:
Broad contractual indemnities that exceed the standard of care and fall into the policy's contractual exclusion
Professional-liability limits too low for the largest projects
A lapsed or reset retroactive date that leaves years of completed work uncovered
No tail on merger, sale, retirement, or closure
Missing cyber and social-engineering coverage
The gaps that hurt most are the uninsurable contractual indemnity and a broken retroactive-date or tail chain.
Real-World Claim Examples
A structural engineer under-designs load capacity, leading to cracking and remediation
Incomplete or conflicting drawings force field changes and a cost-overrun claim
A building-envelope coordination gap causes water intrusion discovered years later
A firm signs a broad owner indemnity and part of the obligation is uninsurable
A design defect contributes to an injury, drawing a bodily-injury claim
Any one of these can be high-severity and slow to surface without continuous coverage.
Regulatory & Licensing Context
State boards license architects and professional engineers, and firms often need certificates of authorization to practice. Only a licensed architect or engineer may sign, seal, or stamp plans, calculations, and reports — sealing certifies competence and personal legal responsibility — and requirements vary by state, with some treating the structural engineer license separately. Even minor seal or rule violations can trigger disciplinary investigations, and public and private contracts routinely mandate minimum professional-liability limits as a condition of award.
Why Proper Placement Matters
Underwriters weigh annual revenue and fees, the discipline mix, project types and complexity, jurisdiction, the firm's contractual risk-transfer and indemnity language, prior claims and disciplinary history, quality-control and contract-review practices, and cyber controls. Structural, geotechnical, high-rise, condominium, and design-build work price up for their severity. Coverage is claims-made, placed with A&E specialty markets on a practice or project-specific basis with follow-form excess. Getting the indemnity language, limits, and retroactive-date continuity right is what keeps the coverage sound over a long tail.
Our Approach
At Cory Washington & Co., we insure architects and engineers around design risk — the high-severity, long-tail errors-and-omissions exposure and the contractual traps that go with it. We review indemnity language to keep obligations insurable, structure professional liability with continuous prior-acts and tail, and coordinate general liability, cyber, crime, and umbrella into one program placed with A&E specialty markets. We also insure related professional practices, including consultants, accounting firms, and law firms, and the broader professional services category.
A defect can surface years after the drawings are sealed — we build coverage that will still be there when it does.
All insurance descriptions on this website are provided by Cory Washington & Co. LLC strictly for general informational purposes. They are not intended to be, and should not be relied upon as, legal, financial, or insurance advice. The information presented is general in nature and does not guarantee the availability, terms, conditions, or scope of any insurance coverage. Actual coverage is determined solely by the specific policy language issued by the insurer and remains subject to underwriting approval. Nothing on this website creates or implies an agent-client relationship, binds coverage, or alters any existing policy. Cory Washington & Co. LLC expressly disclaims any liability for actions taken, or not taken, based on the content provided here. For advice regarding your particular situation, please consult directly with a licensed insurance professional at Cory Washington & Co. LLC or another qualified insurance professional, and always review your policy documents in full.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get architects & engineers insurance through Cory Washington & Co.?
Request a quote or contact our team. We start with a short conversation about your operations, analyze your exposures, then negotiate architects & engineers insurance across multiple carriers that compete for your account and present options with the trade-offs explained. Cory Washington & Co. LLC is licensed in all 50 states.
How are architects & engineers insurance premiums priced?
It depends on your exposure. Architects & engineers insurance is priced on factors like your industry, size, prior claims, and the limits and deductibles you select — so two businesses rarely pay the same. We shop your account across competing carriers and present the trade-offs in plain English.
Is architects & engineers insurance mandatory?
It depends on your situation. Some coverage is required by law; more often, architects & engineers insurance is required by a contract, lease, lender, or client before they will do business with you — and even when it is not mandated, it guards against exposures that can be severe. We review your operations and obligations and tell you plainly what you need and why.
What if another agency has already declined or non-renewed my coverage?
Difficult, specialty, and previously-declined placements are a core part of our work. We access excess & surplus (E&S) and specialty markets that many generalist agencies cannot, and we explain the trade-offs clearly so you can decide with confidence.
Available in all 50 states. See how requirements differ in California, Texas, Florida, New York, or choose your state.