It may seem ironic, but miscellaneous professional liability (MPL) insurance is an area that fields a disproportionate amount of errors.

In fact, “it’s probably one of the most common areas where mistakes are made,” says Garrett Koehn, president, regional director northwest for CRC|Crump Group. While the coverage is simple in theory, Koehn says even MPL—which has a reputation for being straightforward compared to more specific lines of professional liability—has the potential to get pretty technical, especially as technology continues to infiltrate MPL.

Instead of simply securing MPL coverage for an accounting firm that does tax audits, for example, agents writing MPL today might have to understand complex business models that involve everything from providing soup-to-nuts tech solutions for various industries to “doing X, Y and Z, and there’s maybe a products component in there—they can be incredibly complex and very broad in scope,” says Kirstin Simonson, underwriting director at Travelers Global Technology.

And that can be tricky, considering most agents looking at an MPL policy will typically run into “some type of defined service—maybe solely in the performance of providing consulting services for others, for example,” Simonson says. “Well, what happens if tomorrow the client gets into billing software or data processing, or in the case of some contractors, is now doing electrical engineering?”

Alex Wayne, executive vice president at A.J. Wayne & Associates, Inc., agrees. “One of the things agents should always focus on is that the ‘professional services definition’—the description of professional services—adequately describes what the insured does,” he says. “You don’t want to be too specific about it because that can restrict coverage, so you want to be just vague enough while making sure you capture what they do.”

Another important policy detail? Defense costs in addition to limits. “Often, they’re within the limits—that might be an option that is available,” Wayne explains. “That’s more important in my opinion than first-dollar defense, just because most professional liability involves claims of severity but not frequency.”

Be sure to name all the entities on the policy that apply to the insured—“unlike for something like D&O liability, the subsidiaries are not always automatically covered,” Wayne says—and remember: With a large number of MPL policies in particular, the contract drives the purchase.

“If I’m starting off with a new piece of business and I know the contract is driving the purchase, I definitely want to very carefully review the contract to make sure what I’m offering complies with everything on that contract,” Wayne says. “That’s really important, because some new things are popping up in the last few years that aren’t always readily available in the marketplace—things like waiver of subrogation, additional insured and primary noncontributory that are traditionally more of a general liability thing.”

If all that feels overwhelming, don’t try to go it alone. “Whether you’re talking about MPL or one particular line, it’s a very specialized product,” says John Torvi, vice president of marketing and sales at Landy. “You’re talking about loss-only deductibles, claim expenses inside and outside of limits, reporting periods, retroactive dates, extended reporting periods—all those things that make E&O. And frankly most general business agents don’t know about all that, and that’s ok. They’re generalists, they’re not specialists. But they need to go to an administrator that does know and will help them.”

When selecting partners that know what they’re doing, pay close attention to carrier ratings and past claims service. “That sounds so obvious as to be meaningless, but agents really have to look at a carrier’s claims service, claims history and philosophy,” Torvi says. “There are those carriers that want to represent the client and will defend their policies, and those that will just decline right off the bat and make the policyholder pay for it.”

Whether that means finding a carrier or administrator that provides risk management hotlines to other risk management services or one that offers specialized panel counsel in different parts of the country to represent E&O clients, the right ally can be a powerful tool in the MPL market.

“Most underwriters love the opportunity to talk shop,” Simonson says. “The one thing any good insurance underwriter wants to do is make sure there are no surprises for that agent and that that agent looks good in front of the customer. Getting to know your underwriter and understanding how broad the policy is or is not will help you better negotiate on behalf of those clients.”