HR consulting advises on the most litigated relationship in business – employment – and its insurance question has a distinctive twist: when the dismissal you advised on ends in tribunal, whose problem is it? The client employer faces the tribunal; you face the client. Professional indemnity for HR consultants is built for precisely that second step. This guide covers the trade's specifics.
What insurance does an HR consultant need?
Professional indemnity – the core. The claim shapes: dismissal or disciplinary advice that produced an unfair-dismissal or discrimination finding, redundancy processes run on your template, TUPE guidance in transactions, and policy drafting with gaps that surfaced in tribunal. Clients who lose at tribunal on your advice look to recover from you – £1m is the working floor, and retained HR consultants serving multiple SME clients should think about aggregate exposure across their client base in a bad employment-law year.
The adjacent products question. Much of the HR-consulting market sells insured retainers – advice backed by legal-expenses insurance covering the client's tribunal defence if the advice was followed. If you offer this (or white-label it), the arrangement needs its own scrutiny: whose policy, whose conditions, and what happens to your PI position when the insurer declines a client's claim. Getting this architecture right is the trade's most consequential insurance decision.
Also: cyber and data (you process employee personal data across client organisations – special-category data in disciplinaries and occupational health), public liability for client sites, employers' liability for your own staff (the irony writes itself, but it's still the law), and legal expenses.
How much does it cost?
Standard consulting pricing with an employment-law premium: solo HR consultants with £1m PI typically pay £150–£400/year (entry floors: Markel from £5/month; Simply Business PI from £6.62/month; Hiscox from £9.80/month). Insured-retainer models, investigation work and TUPE-heavy practices rate upward; CIPD standing helps the underwriting conversation without changing the requirement.
Comparison of providers
| Provider | Type | Notable features |
|---|---|---|
| Hiscox | Direct insurer | Strong PI for advisory professions; clear treatment of consultancy trades; 4.4 Trustpilot |
| Markel Direct | Direct insurer | HR consultancy a listed trade; legal helpline is genuinely on-topic here; from £5/mo |
| Superscript | Digital broker | Monthly flexibility; 4.5 Trustpilot |
| Simply Business | Comparison | Multi-insurer benchmark; quick retainer-client certificates |
| AXA | Direct insurer | Household-name paper; from £66/yr |
| Specialist brokers | Brokers | Essential where you run insured-retainer schemes – the architecture needs design, not just purchase |
Reviews and expert ratings
Superscript 4.5/5; Hiscox 4.4; AXA 4.3; Simply Business 4.2; Markel 4.0. Which?/Fairer Finance: not rated.
Key takeaway
Carry £1m PI as the floor, document that clients decide while you advise (your file notes are your defence), and treat any insured-retainer offering as an insurance programme to be designed, not a marketing feature to be added. You spend your days telling clients that process protects them; the same is true of you.
Sources
- markeluk.com (HR consultancy trade listing; pricing)
- hiscox.co.uk; simplybusiness.co.uk; axa.co.uk; gosuperscript.com