Professional indemnity insurance and Practice Protection deal with different problems. Insurance responds to defined insured risks and policy terms. Practice Protection focuses on the operating position when the usual principal cannot give instructions.
Professional indemnity generally addresses claims arising from professional services, subject to the wording, exclusions and requirements of the policy. Your broker or insurer is responsible for explaining the cover that applies to your practice.
PCO tests who steps in, what they may decide, what systems and records they can access, what limits apply, where professional eligibility matters, how urgent work is handed over, and what must still be confirmed by a bank, regulator, provider, attorney or other adviser.
Insurance does not by itself tell staff who may approve payroll, instruct a provider, access a client file, supervise regulated work or handle an urgent deadline when the principal is unavailable. Equally, a Practice Protection Plan is not an insurance policy and does not replace professional indemnity or other risk cover.
Traditional business continuity planning often focuses on disruptions such as systems, premises, cyber incidents or disasters. PCO’s narrower focus is the principal-dependency problem: what must work when the key decision-maker cannot give instructions, even if the office and technology are otherwise operating normally.