“Is it mandatory in my profession?” – this is the most common question, and it is exactly the kind of question it would be irresponsible to answer with a ready-made list. The scope of mandatory liability insurance depends on the activity and changes from time to time: laws set it out, chamber regulations spell out the details, and both get amended. So this article does not give you a list – it gives you a method: how to reliably check your own situation.
- For some professions – typically where an error can cause significant harm to someone else – the law or a chamber requires liability insurance.
- The list is subject to change: you need to check the rules currently in force, since a fixed list quickly goes out of date.
- The way to check: current guidance from your own chamber, professional body or licensing authority.
Why do the state or the chamber require insurance?
The logic is the same everywhere: where a professional error typically causes significant harm to someone else – and protecting the injured party is a matter of public interest – the legislator or the professional self-governing body makes the ability to meet claims a condition of practising. That is why you typically find an insurance requirement in trust-based, expert professions: where the client depends on the professional's knowledge and cannot spot an error in advance. The specific activities covered and the level of cover required are always set by the applicable law or chamber regulation for that profession – for example, the law has required compulsory liability insurance of building contractors since 15 January 2025 (Government Decree 191/2009, Section 21/B) and of architectural and engineering designers since 2025 (Government Decree 266/2013); never rely on any list without checking, including this page.
How to check your own profession: four steps
First: look at the conditions for carrying out your activity wherever your entitlement is registered – chamber, authority, registration body. Second: search for the term “liability insurance” among the operating conditions – if there is a requirement, it will be there, typically together with the content it must have. Third: check your own contracts – sometimes it is not the law but your framework agreement or franchise agreement that requires cover. Fourth: repeat all of this every year – requirements change, and typically your professional body's newsletter is the first source (chambers and insurance).
Mandatory and adequate are not the same thing
Where cover is required, the prescribed content is a minimum: sized so that the condition of practising is met – not so that it protects your actual book of contracts. It is worth consciously managing the gap between the minimum and your real risk: article on minimum limits, sizing your limit. The reverse is also true: where there is no requirement, that does not mean cover is “not needed” – it just means the decision is left to you (do I need it).
The next step
If, after checking, a question remains – “what exactly does this requirement ask of me?” – bring your chamber's guidance or your contract to a free consultation: together we will put together cover that meets the requirement and is also sized to your real risk.
Example: two professions, two paths
Two acquaintances, both business owners, two different situations. For the first, professional registration includes liability insurance as a condition: for him the question is not “do I need it” but “exactly what does it require” – checking the prescribed content and sizing above it. The second has no requirement at all, but his largest client has been asking for a certificate since last year, and the tender he is preparing for also sets a required limit: for him the obligation arrived via the market, not the law. The lesson: today, the question “is it mandatory” rarely needs answering just once – the regulatory environment (law, chamber, market) needs re-checking every year, and of the two, the market side is often the stricter one.
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