Professional insurance is one of the most overlooked things to check when you hand your company formation, registered address, and compliance to a corporate services provider you may never meet in person. You are trusting them to file the right documents, meet deadlines, keep your company in good standing, and handle sensitive information correctly, so it is worth asking a question few founders think to ask until something goes wrong: What happens if the provider makes a mistake?
Capture carries professional indemnity insurance underwritten at Lloyd’s, with a limit of one million euros. We want to explain why we did this, and why we think it is a question worth asking of any provider you trust with your business.
What Professional Indemnity Insurance Actually Is
Professional indemnity insurance, sometimes called professional liability cover, protects clients when a professional service firm makes an error that causes them a loss. It exists in the professions where getting the details right matters: Law, accountancy, architecture, financial advice. If a mistake is made in the course of the work, the insurance stands behind the firm’s responsibility to put it right, rather than leaving the client exposed to the consequences of an error they did not make.
For corporate services, the principle is the same. Company formation and administration involve deadlines, filings, and legal requirements where a genuine mistake, however rare, can have real consequences for the client. Insurance means that if such a situation ever arose, there is a substantial, independently backed safety net behind our work.
Why We Chose to Carry It
We could operate without it. Many providers do, and it is not a legal requirement for the work we do. We arranged it anyway, for a simple reason: It reflects how we think about our responsibility to clients.
Taking on someone’s company is a serious thing. We already invest heavily in getting the work right the first time through careful processes, licensed compliance, and attention to detail. Insurance is the acknowledgment that no professional firm, however careful, should ask clients to carry the entire risk of a mistake alone. It is a statement that we stand behind our work not only with words but with cover that means something.
There is also a quieter point. A firm willing to be insured is a firm willing to be held accountable. Insurers assess the businesses they cover. Being underwritten at Lloyd’s, one of the oldest and most respected names in insurance, is itself a form of external scrutiny of how we operate. We were comfortable with that scrutiny, and we think that comfort says something worth knowing.
What This Means If You Are Choosing a Provider
We are not going to tell you that every provider without insurance is one to avoid. Plenty of good, honest firms operate without it, and coverage is only one of many things that make a provider trustworthy. But it is a fair and useful question to ask, and surprisingly few people ask it.
When you are comparing corporate services providers, it is worth asking a handful of simple questions. Are they properly licensed for the work? Who actually handles your company, and are they accountable? What happens if something goes wrong, and is there any protection behind their work? A provider who can answer that last question clearly has considered your risk as well as their own convenience.
The reason we are writing this is not to suggest that mistakes are likely. Our whole operation is built to prevent them, and the value of good process is that the insurance rarely, if ever, needs to be called upon. The point is about posture. We would rather set the business up so that, in the unlikely event of an error, our clients are protected than hope the question never comes up.
What It Means for Our Clients
In practical terms, nothing changes about how we work, and that is rather the point. The same careful processes, the same licensed compliance, the same attention to your company’s standing. What is added is a layer of protection behind all of it. Clients who form and run their companies with Capture can now do so knowing that our professional responsibility is backed by cover underwritten at Lloyd’s, up to one million euros.
We think that is how a serious corporate services firm should operate. Not because mistakes are expected, but because taking a client’s business seriously means taking responsibility for it seriously too. If you would like to know more about how we work, or about forming and running a company with a provider that stands behind its work, we would be glad to talk.
