Week 6 – Risk Management and Professional Indemnity

ACSIS –  Australian Consulting Surveyors Insurance Society

Insurance needs of surveyors include but are not limited to the following-

• PROFESSIONAL INDEMNITY
• PERSONAL INJURY
• PRODUCT LIABILITY
• WORKERS COMPENSATION 
• PROPERTY DAMAGE
• MOTOR VEHICLE
• DEFAMATION
• POLLUTION

ACSIS is a group set up with the thoughts of providing surveyors with the coverage they need in all scenarios. This is not just insurance but also risk management and indemnity claim support to name some others.

The presentation centred around risk management and how it should be dealt with in an organisation.

PI INSURANCE –

One small form of risk management, transfers the risk from you to an insurer. This does not negate the risk just reduces the impact. It is important to decide what level of cover is needed. Some clients may insist on a certain level of cover, in order to cover the project in the case of a mishap. Many factors considered when calculating premiums including, type of work, history and amount of cover required.

Litigation can arise from errors in field work, errors in reports, omitted information, too much information, failure to meet time constraints etc. Construction setout is the main error.

ROLE PLAYING SCENARIO –

We then undertook a role playing scenario as a class in which there was a mis-communication between a site foreman of a company who departed and a surveyor. It was very interesting to see that even though the construction company was mainly at fault that the surveying company was still partially liable for not following all protocol correctly and not having correct documentation.