Playbook, marketing agency
The insurance question that arrives with a contract behind it
This is not a member of the public asking whether the agency is covered. It is somebody in procurement working through a supplier pack, checking the professional indemnity cover against a limit written into their own contract, sometimes public liability too where there are shoots or events, and asking whether cover reaches the freelancers in the delivery chain. They want a certificate, and a certificate is a document a person sends.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for insurance and coverage holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The limit named in the client's contract is the entire question, and confirming a figure that turns out to be lower than a renewal has left it is a misstatement inside a procurement process rather than a small error.
- Cover has to be read against the delivery chain, because work carried out by a freelancer or a subcontractor may sit outside a policy written for the agency's own staff.
- A second question hides inside the first: whether the agency's cover would answer for a client's wasted media budget after a misconfigured campaign, which is a claims question rather than an underwriting one.
- Where the agency runs shoots, events or activations there are further policies with nothing to do with indemnity, and answering all of it with one word is how a supplier pack comes back rejected.
How it arrives
- what is your professional indemnity limit
- can you send a certificate of insurance
- does your cover include the contractors you use
- are you insured for the shoot next month
- our contract needs a named limit can you confirm it
- would your insurance cover wasted ad spend
What has to be indexed for this to work
| What cover the agency holds, by type, without figures | Professional indemnity, public liability, employers liability, and anything specific to production work, named as types. The types are publishable. The limits and the renewal dates are not material for a chat reply. |
|---|---|
| Who issues a certificate, and how long it takes | The person or the broker, the address to ask, and the turnaround. Procurement wants to know the document can be produced, which is a different question from what is written in it. |
| How the delivery chain is covered | Whether freelancers and subcontractors carry their own cover, whether you require it, and at what level. This appears in supplier packs constantly and it is a contract position as much as an insurance one. |
| The contractual position on client media budget | What your contract says about liability for spend, any cap, and how an error is handled. Publish it, because the insurance question is usually this one wearing different words. |
The reply
We do hold professional indemnity cover, and the types of cover we carry are listed on our terms page [1]. I am not going to state a limit or confirm one against your contract, because those figures move at renewal and a number from me is not the agency's position. A certificate is issued by our broker and there is an address on that page for requesting one [2]. Send your name, an email and what your pack needs and it will reach the person who handles supplier documents.
It confirms cover exists, because refusing even that reads as evasion and stalls an onboarding. The refusal on the limit is given a reason about accuracy rather than about policy, which procurement accepts immediately. And it names the certificate route, since the outcome of this conversation was always going to be a document rather than an answer.
Where it stops
The trigger. The prospect asks for a figure, a certificate, a named limit, or confirmation against a clause in their own contract.
A limit and a certificate come from the agency rather than from me, and anything confirmed against your contract has to be signed off by somebody who can commit us. Leave your name, an email and what the pack needs and it will reach the right person today.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never state an indemnity limit, a policy number, an insurer, or a renewal date.
- Never confirm that cover meets a limit written into somebody else's contract.
- Never say a claim would be covered, or that wasted media spend would be met.
- Never confirm that a freelancer or a subcontractor is insured, since that is their policy rather than the agency's.
Questions
- Is confirming that we hold cover safe?
- Confirming the types you publish is safe, and it keeps a supplier onboarding moving. The unsafe part is any figure, because limits move at renewal and a stale number sitting in a procurement thread is the version that gets relied on.
- Can it send the certificate?
- No. It cannot send or receive a file of any kind. It points at the address that produces one and takes a name, an email and a message so the request reaches a person, which is where a certificate was always coming from.
- Prospects ask whether we would cover a wasted budget. What should it say?
- Nothing about insurance. That is a liability question governed by the contract, and an assistant venturing an answer has stated the agency's position on a claim before anyone has looked at it. Route it, and let the reply come from somebody who can read the terms.
Keep reading
- Everything for a marketing agencyService definitions and engagement terms convert. A price quoted for work nobody has scoped is the trap on an agency site.
- Handling insurance and coverage in generalWhether something is covered turns on the policy wording, so the assistant explains process and never adjudicates. Claims have to reach a person fast.
- The quote question every agency site gets, and the number nobody should sayBespoke work has no price until somebody scopes it. How the assistant gives a published starting point without naming a number for the brief.
- How an agency charges, before anyone talks about what it costsEngagement shapes, minimum terms and what sits inside the monthly fee. The commercial structure prospects compare before they compare agencies.
- Data and security questions from the prospect's procurement teamAgencies process customer data for clients. What the assistant can answer from a published position, and where a person has to commit the firm.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.