How much does errors and omissions insurance cost?

Most tech businesses buy technology errors and omissions insurance (tech E&O), which bundles E&O with cyber liability insurance. Tech E&O insurance costs vary from an average of roughly $730 per year to more than $1,400.

The cost of your policy depends on how much E&O/professional liability insurance coverage you buy. Most TechInsurance customers (63%) buy an errors and omissions policy with a $1 million per-occurrence limit and a $1 million aggregate limit.

If you provide professional services that affect a client’s profits, choosing higher limits could be a smart business decision. It’ll cost more, but also cover more expensive claims.

As you can see in the chart below, there’s a direct correlation between how much you pay and your coverage limits.

Read more about how much cyber liability coverage you need.

Your type of business and its size influence the cost of E&O/professional liability insurance. Your insurance company will also look at:

If your mistake costs a client money, you may have a lawsuit on your hands.

IT consultants, project managers, software developers, and others whose work directly impacts a client’s bottom line are at risk of E&O lawsuits. That means they’ll likely pay more for this insurance policy.

For example, a software developer could miss a bug in a client program. When the bug surfaces and crashes the client’s system for three days, the client could sue to recover lost profits and other costs.

Consultants and others who provide expert advice face similar risks. If your recommendations don’t produce the desired results, you could also be taken to court.

The amount of risk determines the cost of errors and omissions insurance that includes cyber liability insurance. For example, cybersecurity companies and businesses with sensitive digital assets pay more for this coverage.

Cyber insurance costs depend on the amount of data and the number of employees who can access it. It’s simple math: more people accessing more data increases the chance of a data breach.

Choosing a higher deductible is an easy way to save on your premium. Most TechInsurance customers opt for a deductible of $1,000 for E&O insurance.

But make sure to choose a deductible you can easily afford. If you can’t pay it, you can’t collect on a claim.

Your insurance company will charge more to protect you if you’ve cost them money in the past. That’s why you need to answer questions about liability claims when you apply for this policy.

Because errors and omissions insurance is a claims-made policy, you can also pay more to extend coverage to a date in the past. But it’s cheaper to maintain continuous coverage than to stop and restart a policy.

It’s easy to save money on your E&O policy without compromising on coverage. For instance, you can:

Pay your premium in full. Your insurance company will ask if you want to pay your premium annually or in monthly installments. The annual premium costs less than paying month by month.

Reduce your risks. It’s unfortunate but true, claims on your insurance make your premium go up. The good news is, you can reduce some risks to avoid claims and keep your premium low.

A good risk management strategy to reduce E&O claims includes:

• Detailed contracts with clients
• Clear client communication
• Prompt resolution of complaints
• Checking (and double-checking!) your work for errors
• Strong cybersecurity measures to reduce cyber risks

You can’t eliminate risk. If that were possible, insurance companies would be out of business. But risk management helps you sidestep common pitfalls that lead to insurance claims and higher errors and omissions (professional liability) insurance costs.

View our small business insurance cost overview or find out how much you can expect to pay for common types of business insurance.

• General liability insurance
• Workers' compensation insurance
• Business owner's policy
• Cyber liability insurance
• Commercial umbrella insurance
• Commercial auto insurance
• Employment practices liability insurance
• Directors and officers insurance
• Fidelity bonds
• Commercial property insurance
• Business interruption insurance