Insurables — Australian business risk, sourced and dated

Lawyers: professional indemnity requirements in New South Wales

Cover for legal liability arising from professional advice or services, written on a claims-made basis.

Data as at

Verified for New South Wales

  • Licence liability condition: Yes. The Uniform Law provides that the regulatory authority may grant or renew a practising certificate only if satisfied the applicant "has, or will have on or before the grant or renewal" the required professional indemnity insurance. New South Wales runs a single approved-insurer scheme rather than an open market: the approved policy is available from Lawcover. So a solicitor in private practice does not shop this cover the way other professions do. NSW · effective 2015-07-01 Law Society of New South Wales · 2026-08-24
  • Licence evidence required: At grant and at each annual renewal of the practising certificate. The regulatory authority must be satisfied the cover is in place on or before the grant or renewal takes effect, so it is a precondition rather than something produced afterwards on request. NSW · effective 2015-07-01 Law Society of New South Wales · 2026-08-24
  • Licensing body: The Law Society of New South Wales, as the designated local regulatory authority under the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW). The credential is an Australian practising certificate, granted and renewed annually. NSW · effective 2015-07-01 Law Society of New South Wales · 2026-08-24

What contracts commonly ask for

Principals and head contractors set their own insurance requirements, and those are frequently higher than a licence condition. The requirement that binds is the higher of the two, and both have to be read from the actual document.

What this cover costs

This site publishes no cost benchmark for this cover. A benchmark needs a real sample of documents, and none is published until the sample is large enough to compute a median honestly. A benchmark from a handful of policies is a guess with a decimal point.

Sources