A&E Insurance for California Design Firms.

Design liability has long tail (claims years after project completion), high severity (construction-cost-level damages), and complex causation (was the design wrong, the construction wrong, or both?). A&E E&O policies are specifically structured for these patterns — they include extended reporting period options, specialized claims handling with construction expertise, and underwriters who understand design risk. Generic professional liability doesn't handle these well.

Practice policy: covers all your firm's professional services for a policy period, regardless of project. Most common. Project policy: provides dedicated limits for a single named project, separate from your practice policy. Used when project requirements exceed practice limits or when a single project's risk shouldn't share limits with other work.

When switching A&E E&O carriers (or buying coverage for the first time), the retroactive date determines what historical work is covered. Full prior acts means any past work is covered (highest premium, lowest risk). A specific retroactive date means only work after that date is covered. We negotiate prior acts aggressively when switching carriers — losing prior acts means losing coverage for years of completed projects.

Almost all A&E E&O is claims-made — coverage responds to claims filed during the policy period, subject to the retroactive date. Occurrence-form E&O exists but is rare and typically much more expensive. Claims-made structure is what makes prior-acts coverage and Extended Reporting Periods so important — they protect you when you change carriers or retire.

When you switch carriers, retire, or otherwise leave claims-made E&O, ERP extends the reporting period for claims arising from work done during the policy period. Without ERP, a claim filed after you've left the policy isn't covered. Some policies include limited ERP automatically; longer ERPs (5-year, 10-year) are typically purchased at retirement or major firm changes.

Yes. We have markets specifically for solo architects and engineers up through multi-discipline firms. Premium scales with firm revenue, project mix, and claims history. Solo practitioners often qualify for streamlined policies with lower minimum premiums.

Many design contracts include indemnification provisions where the design firm agrees to defend and indemnify the owner. Standard E&O may exclude contractual liability assumed beyond what would exist absent the contract. We review contract language and confirm the firm's E&O responds to typical contract terms — or negotiate contract language that matches available coverage.

Three exposures: (1) design files (CAD, BIM, specifications) — extremely valuable to clients; (2) client data including proprietary information; (3) ransomware on engineering workstations. A&E firms have been targeted for design IP theft. Cyber covers incident response, business interruption from cyber events, and client notification.