Free fact finder · Australia
Architects' insurance fact finder
Every question the architects' professional indemnity forms ask, asked once in plain English. Send it to your client and their answers fill each insurer's form.
- No login needed
- Fillable PDF with your logo
- 123 questions
- Written for AU rules
What it asks
The questions underwriters ask, in plain English.
Each one comes with a line saying why it's asked, so your client answers fully the first time.
- 1Which of these services do you provide? Tick all that apply.Each service carries a different risk. Project management and certification work are priced differently from design.
- 2Which kinds of project do you work on? Tick all that apply.Insurers price by what is being built: a mistake on a tunnel or a tower costs far more than one on a house.
- 3Do your contracts always exclude liability for consequential or indirect loss, such as a client's lost profits?Lost profits and delay costs can far exceed the cost of fixing a design error.
- 4Do you have a formal process for peer review or dual sign-off of design work?A second check before drawings are issued is the control design insurers value most.
- 5Do you ever take over responsibility for another firm's design or professional work, for example by a deed of novation?Taking over someone else's design means taking on their mistakes too.
- 6Is anyone in the practice aware of a mistake, complaint or situation that could lead to a claim?Anything known before cover starts is excluded unless declared now.
The practice
Entity, principals, professional bodies and fees by state for stamp duty.
Services and projects
Tick the services and project types, then the share of fees for each: houses, high-rise, civic, fit-outs and more.
Contracts
Signed appointments, liability caps, consequential loss, indemnities and proportionate liability.
Higher-risk work
Design and construct, novation, heritage, façades and very large projects.
Claims and insurance
Past claims, known circumstances, current cover and the retroactive date that must carry over.
How it works
- 1
Open it and try it
Answer it on the page as your client would. Follow-up questions appear as you go. Nothing is saved.
No login
- 2
Send it, or download the PDF
Send your client a link to answer by form or chat, with reminders sent for you. Or download a fillable PDF with your logo.
PDF free, no email
- 3
Fill the insurers' forms
When your client answers, one click starts each insurer's form with their answers in, and drafts a needs summary for you to finish.
Free 14-day trial
Minimum cover
Who sets an architect's minimum cover
- Architects Registration Board of Victoria
- Practising architects in Victoria must hold professional indemnity insurance meeting the Architects Insurance Ministerial Order, with a limit of at least $1 million for each claim ($1.2 million if defence costs are included), and prove it to the Board by 1 July each year.
- NSW design practitioner scheme
- Registered design practitioners and professional engineers working on regulated buildings in NSW must hold professional indemnity insurance that covers all their design work since they were first registered, at a level they judge adequate.
A summary, not advice. Other states' boards and your clients' contracts may set their own rules: check before setting a limit.
Free tool or a free trial
The fact finder is free. A trial does the forms.
Free, no login
Everything you need to use it.
- The whole fact finder, answered as your client would
- How much of each insurer's form it fills
- Fillable PDF with your firm's logo
With a 14-day free trial
Your client answers once. No card needed.
- Send it as a link: answered by form or chat, with reminders
- Upload a PDF your client filled in and the answers are read in
- Start each insurer's form with your client's answers in
- A first draft of the client's needs summary
- Next year, your client only confirms what changed
Before you ask
Questions about the architects fact finder.
- Is the architects' fact finder really free?
- Yes. Answer it on the page as your client would, and download it as a fillable PDF with your logo, with no login and no email. Sending it to a client as a link comes with a free 14-day trial.
- How does it fill the insurers' forms?
- Each question is linked to the same question on the architects' and design forms in the Coverbound Form Library. Starting an insurer's form puts your client's answers in, and they confirm them instead of typing them again. The rest of each form, mostly tables of projects, principals and past claims, they answer there.
- Which insurers' forms does it fill?
- Architects' and architects-and-engineers' professional indemnity proposal forms from AIG, Arch, CFC, Chubb, DUAL, Pacific Indemnity, Pen, QBE, Swiss Re and Vero. The page shows how much of each one it fills.
- Can my client fill in the PDF instead of answering online?
- Yes. It's a real fillable PDF they can type into in any PDF reader. When they send it back, upload it to your account and the answers are read straight in.
Ask once. Fill every form.
Open the fact finder, try it as your client and download the fillable PDF. No login needed.
Open the fact finder