Professional indemnity for real estate agents, property managers and strata managers.

Quick answerIn New South Wales, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, yes. New South Wales requires at least $1 million for any one claim and $3 million in the aggregate on every licence class. Tasmania requires $2 million for any one event, or $1 million for general auctioneers, and suspends the licence while cover lapses. The Northern Territory requires an approved policy but sets no sum. Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, the ACT and Queensland impose no requirement under their agent licensing schemes.

New South Wales is the strict case, and it applies to more people than most agents assume. The requirement sits in the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002 and the Property and Stock Agents Regulation 2022, and it attaches to a licensee, which means every licence class under the Act: a real estate agent's licence, a stock and station agent's licence and a strata managing agent's licence alike. It binds individuals and corporations. The minimum is at least $1 million for any one claim and at least $3 million in the aggregate for all claims made during the period of insurance. Two details inside that are worth more than the headline number, and they are covered further down.

Tasmania mandates it and enforces it through the licence itself. Under the Property Agents and Land Transactions Act 2016, a licensed property agent carrying on business must hold professional indemnity insurance, and the licence is treated as suspended for any period the agent is without it. The minimum is set by the Property Agents Board rather than by the legislation: $2 million for any one event for real estate agents and property managers carrying on business, and $1 million for general auctioneers, effective from 1 January 2026. Property representatives, meaning salespeople rather than licensees, are not caught by the section. Because the Board sets the figure by policy rather than by amendment, it can move without a change to the Act, so it is worth confirming the current figure at renewal rather than assuming last year's still stands.

The Northern Territory mandates cover but prescribes no amount. Part XIIA of the Agents Licensing Act 1979 says an agent must not carry on business unless insured under an approved indemnity insurance policy, and it is both a licensing condition and a practice offence. What the Act does not do is name a sum. The policy has to be one the Agents Licensing Board has approved, and the Board may set conditions in that approval, so if a limit applies to you it comes from there rather than from the legislation. An agent who is an employee of another agent is exempt for as long as that employment continues, so the duty sits with the practice rather than with every licensed person in it.

Queensland does not require it, but keeps a switch that could turn it on. The Property Occupations Act 2014 lets the regulator attach a condition to a licence requiring the licensee to hold insurance of a kind and in an amount prescribed under a regulation. The Property Occupations Regulation 2014 has never prescribed either, and the conduct standards it does set for agents say nothing about insurance. Say that precisely: the scheme does not require it, which is not the same as saying no Queensland agent could ever be required to hold it. The power exists, has never been exercised, and could be switched on by a future regulation without new legislation being needed. Queensland instead runs its own statutory claim fund, covered below, and that fund is not a substitute for cover of your own.

Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and the ACT impose no professional indemnity requirement through their agent licensing schemes. These four were each re-checked instrument by instrument, including every subordinate instrument in force under the relevant Act, and none of them carries a professional indemnity duty for agents. Say that precisely, though, because the precision is the point: these schemes impose no requirement, which is not the same as saying nobody in those states could ever be required to hold cover. Several of them keep a discretionary power to attach conditions to an individual licence, and your own contracts, franchise agreements and professional body memberships are a separate question again.

Quick answerAgency claims rarely start with a dramatic event. They start with a number in an appraisal, a line in an advertisement, a disclosure that was not made, a bond that was lodged late or a repair that was not actioned. The loss is the client's money, and it is the kind of loss public liability insurance was never built to answer.

Sales. A property is advertised with a floor area, a zoning, a permitted use or an inclusion that turns out not to be right, and the buyer says they paid on the strength of it. An appraisal or a market opinion is given, the vendor sells on it, and later says the figure cost them money. A disclosure obligation is missed, or a material fact about the property is not passed on, and the transaction unwinds or a claim follows it. None of these needs anyone to have been careless in an obvious way. Most of them are a busy week and a form.

Property management. This is where the frequency sits, and it is usually mundane. A bond is not lodged, or is lodged late, or is released to the wrong party. A repair is reported and not actioned, and the damage compounds until the owner is looking at a bill they say should have been a call-out. Entry notice requirements are not met. A tenancy is granted to an applicant whose references were not checked the way the management agreement said they would be. Landlord instructions are not followed, or not recorded. The claim comes from the owner, the tenant, or both.

Strata and community title management. Levies struck on the wrong basis, a maintenance obligation missed, a general meeting run in a way that is later challenged, or advice given to a committee that a lot owner says caused them a loss. Strata management carries the additional feature that the person complaining is often one of many owners with the same complaint.

The common thread is that in every one of these the client's loss is financial and it flows from what you said, wrote, calculated or failed to do, not from an injury or from physical damage. That is precisely the boundary between professional indemnity and public liability, and it is why an agency generally needs both running side by side rather than one instead of the other.

An agency that holds licences in more than one state is running under more than one rulebook, and the rulebooks disagree. That is the first thing we check, because a national or border-straddling agency can satisfy the state it is headquartered in and quietly miss the one it expanded into. The Queensland office of a group with a New South Wales licence is not outside the New South Wales requirement simply because the head office is elsewhere.

The second thing we check is the shape of the limit rather than the size of it, and property management is what makes that urgent: an agency with several tenancy or repair complaints running at once can find the money it thought it had for the next one has already been spent on the last three. The mechanics behind that, and the questions to ask about them, are set out on the main Professional Indemnity Insurance page. None of them appear on a comparison form or on a certificate of currency.

The third is that we read what your professional business is defined as, against what you actually do. Agencies grow sideways. A sales office picks up property management. A property management book picks up a handful of strata schemes. An agent starts doing commercial as well as residential, or takes on a development project marketing role. Every one of those is a change to the risk, and none of them announces itself at renewal unless somebody asks. If your policy's definition of your business still describes the agency you were three years ago, that is the gap, and it is a much more common one than an inadequate limit.

The last is timing. Professional indemnity responds on a claims-made basis, which means the policy running when the claim arrives is the one that answers, not the policy that was running when you did the work. For an industry where a complaint about a sale or a tenancy can surface a long time after settlement, that mechanic matters more than it does almost anywhere else. The detail sits on the main Professional Indemnity Insurance page, and it is the first thing we look at when we review a policy someone arranged themselves.

One boundary worth being straight about. What your licensing scheme requires of you is a question for your regulator, and for your own legal adviser where the answer affects something you are signing. This page sets out what those schemes say so you know which questions to ask. What your policy actually does about it is our side of the table.