Professional indemnity and AI-assisted planning documents

Professional indemnity for an AI planning report is not a new category of insurance. It is the same cover responding to the same duty: that you exercised reasonable skill and care in providing professional services. If a drafted section carried a superseded policy citation into a submitted statement and the client lost a determination because of it, the claim is a straightforward negligence claim against your firm. The drafting method is a fact about how the error got in, not a defence and not a separate peril.

What has changed is what insurers ask at renewal, and what your records need to show. Both are manageable, and both are easier to deal with before a claim than after one.

What a professional indemnity policy responds to

A standard consultancy policy covers civil liability arising from a negligent act, error or omission in the provision of professional services, together with the costs of defending the claim. Most are written on a claims-made basis, with a retroactive date, an aggregate or each-and-every-claim limit, and an excess.

The exclusions matter more than the operative clause here. Policies commonly exclude dishonesty, deliberate breach of duty, fines and penalties, and liability assumed under a contractual warranty or a fitness-for-purpose obligation that goes beyond reasonable skill and care. That last exclusion is the one that catches planning consultants, because a promise about an outcome is not a skill and care obligation and is therefore uninsured.

So the rule is simple. Never promise a planning outcome in an appointment, a fee proposal or an email. Reasonable skill and care in preparing the documents is insurable. A guarantee that the application will be approved is not, and no reputable adviser offers one.

Some insurers have begun asking specific questions at renewal about the use of generative drafting tools, and wordings vary between markets. Read your own schedule rather than assuming the position, and if a new condition or exclusion has appeared, raise it before you bind.

Disclosure, and the duty of fair presentation

For commercial insurance, the Insurance Act 2015 replaced the old duty of disclosure with a duty of fair presentation of the risk. In practice that means disclosing every material circumstance you know or ought to know, in a reasonably clear and accessible way, and making sure every material representation of fact is substantially correct.

Three consequences for a firm using drafting tools.

If the proposal form asks how documents are produced and checked, answer it accurately. A description of a review process that your files do not evidence is a representation problem, and the Act's remedies for a breach are proportionate to what the insurer would have done had it known.

If your working method changes mid-term, check whether the policy contains a condition requiring notification of material changes. Many do, in general terms.

And keep the answer you gave. At claim stage the question will be what you told the insurer and when, and a copy of the completed proposal form in the file answers it.

Who the author is for liability purposes

A tool is not a legal person and cannot owe a duty. The author for liability purposes is the firm that issues the document under its appointment, and the individual who signed it carries the professional conduct obligation alongside.

The closest useful analogy is delegation to a junior. Handing a first draft to a graduate planner does not transfer liability to them, and nobody suggests it does. The obligation it creates is one of supervision: a competent person has to check the work before it goes out, and the extent of that check scales with the consequence of an error.

That framing also answers the question clients sometimes ask about disclosure. There is no general duty to tell a local planning authority how a supporting document was drafted. There is a duty not to mislead, and the application form declaration bites on the content of the submission, not its production method. Where a client wants the position explained, explaining an AI-assisted draft to a client or a committee is a conversation about verification rather than about software.

Sub-consultants, reviewers and the scope of a sign-off

Where a specialist reviews and signs off a drafted report, the scope of that review has to be written down, because an undefined review is read broadly after the event.

Define it against four questions.

1. Is the reviewer verifying input data, or accepting it as given? A reviewer who did not visit the site cannot confirm what is on it.
2. Is the reviewer checking method and conclusions, or editing the text? Those attract different exposures.
3. Does the reviewer's own cover meet the limit required by the appointment, and does it include run-off cover for the limitation period?
4. Is there a net contribution clause, so each party's liability reflects its share?

For report types where a licensed or competent professional is legally required, the position is different again. An Environmental Impact Assessment requires competent experts under the 2017 Regulations. A Protected Species Survey and any mitigation licence require a suitably licensed ecologist. A biodiversity metric has to be completed by a competent person under the Environment Act 2021 regime, and a Fire Statement needs fire-engineering competence. In those cases a draft is a starting point for that professional rather than something they can simply countersign, and an appointment that implies otherwise creates an exposure your policy may not meet. The professional directory is the route to a reviewer for that purpose.

The records that win a claim

Negligence claims are decided on documents, and the firms that defend them successfully are the ones whose files show the checking rather than assert it.

The limitation period is the practical retention guide. Claims in contract and in tort are generally subject to a six year period under the Limitation Act 1980, running from breach or from damage, with a 15 year long-stop for negligence, and a longer period where the appointment was executed as a deed. Destroying a project file at five years is a false economy.

Version control deserves particular attention where sections are regenerated during drafting, because the audit trail is easy to lose. The practices set out in version control when report sections are regenerated are worth adopting as a standing office procedure rather than a project decision.

One note on confidentiality. PlanScope has no published privacy policy or terms, so the only safe position is that users should check the site's current policies before uploading confidential material, and that applies to client documents as much as to anything else.

Appointment wording that matches the cover

Six clauses do most of the work, and none of them is unusual.

A scope that states what the deliverable is, including whether it is a draft for the client to verify or a final report. A statement of the inputs relied on and that they were provided by the client. An exclusion of reliance by third parties. A liability cap consistent with your policy limit. A net contribution clause. And an express confirmation that the appointment is a skill and care obligation with no warranty as to outcome.

Add one more where you work to short deadlines. Record what was not done because of the timetable, and the client's instruction to proceed anyway. Working to an appeal deadline without cutting corners is possible, and the file note is what proves you did, as drafting to an appeal deadline sets out.

What to ask the broker

Take this list to renewal rather than reading the schedule afterwards.

Does the policy contain any exclusion, condition or endorsement relating to automated or generative drafting tools, and if so, what does it require of us. Is the retroactive date unchanged. Are defence costs within the limit or in addition to it. Does the cover respond to the cost of redoing work as well as to third party loss. Is run-off cover available and for how long. Does the policy require notification of a material change in working method mid-term. And what notification obligations are triggered by a circumstance that might give rise to a claim, as opposed to a claim itself.

For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required. See PlanScope pricing: one free report, £50 per report, or Professional for unlimited reports with your own branding.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance, not legal or insurance advice. Check the position with your insurer, your broker or a qualified professional before relying on it.