The penalty was the client’s. The claim is yours.Founded by an agent who has written professional liability for large accounting and law firms.
An accounting firm needs accountants professional liability for the returns, audits and advice, written claims-made with the retroactive date protected, plus cyber, because the FTC treats a tax practice as a financial institution that must keep a written security program. Add crime coverage where you move client money and employment practices once you hire.
Tell us the situation.
One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.
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Your malpractice policy gets read by someone who has placed it for big firms.
Kevin Kelsey
Founder | Principal Agent
Boring’s founder, Kevin Kelsey, has written professional liability for large accounting and law firms. So the retroactive date, the tail and the definition of the services you perform get read by someone who has placed these policies where the stakes were large. A sole practitioner or a small office gets that same reading. Before insurance he edited television for fifteen years and handled compliance and risk for large production companies, and he writes software, including the platform this agency runs on.
Send us what you have. We’ll tell you if it’s right.
Your current policy paperwork, a renewal notice, or nothing at all. A licensed agent reads it and replies the same business day.
What accounting firm businesses actually need.
General liability
Premises and visitors at your own offices and at a client’s site.
Without it — What the lease asks for, and it will not touch a professional claim.
Accountants professional liability
Negligent preparation, advice, audit failure and missed filings.
Without it — Penalties, interest and consequential loss follow an error into the client’s business.
Cyber and data breach
Breach of client financial records, SSNs and tax data.
Without it — A tax practice holds the highest-value identity data there is.
Crime and social engineering
Fraudulent instruction losses, and theft where you handle client funds.
Without it — Bookkeeping and payroll clients mean money movement, and money movement means fraud.
Regulatory defense
Costs of responding to a board, IRS or state investigation.
Without it — A licensing complaint costs real money to answer even when you are right.
Employment practices
Staff claims, in a profession with severe seasonal workload.
Without it — Busy-season overtime and classification disputes are the common pattern.
What the regulators actually wrote down.
Under the FTC Safeguards Rule, an accountant or other tax preparation service that is in the business of completing income tax returns is a financial institution, because tax preparation is a listed financial activity.
FTC Standards for Safeguarding Customer Information, 16 CFR § 314.2 (definition of financial institution, example) · checked 2026-10-04
A financial institution under the rule must develop, implement and maintain a comprehensive information security program that is written, and must implement multi-factor authentication for anyone accessing an information system unless its qualified individual approves an equivalent control in writing.
16 CFR § 314.3(a) and § 314.4(c)(5) · checked 2026-10-04
Businesses like this one, with their own page.
Every one of these is written for that specific operation — the coverages it needs, the questions underwriters ask it, and what it usually gets wrong.
- CPAs and Accounting Practices
A CPA practice needs accountants professional liability, written claims-made with the retroactive date carried forward at every renewal, plus cyber, because the FTC treats an accounting or tax practice as a financial institution that must keep a written security program. Accountants are sued for what a number cost the client: a missed election, a late filing, a valuation the buyer relied on, an audit that did not catch the theft. The professional liability policy that answers those is claims-made, which means the policy in force when the claim arrives is the one that pays, however long after the work. We place accountants professional liability for sole practitioners through multi-partner firms, with the cyber, employment and office coverage a practice needs beside it, and we read the retroactive date first, because for a CPA that date is the coverage.
- Bookkeepers
A bookkeeper needs professional liability (E&O) for errors such as a missed payroll tax deposit, and cyber with social engineering coverage for a fraudulent payment instruction, and both are inexpensive for a solo practice. A bookkeeper touches the client's money more directly than their accountant does: the accounts, the payroll, the sales tax filing, often the bank access. The claims that follow are a missed payroll tax deposit, a filing that was late, a reconciliation that hid a problem, and, increasingly, a fraudulent payment instruction that arrived by email and was paid. A bookkeeper policy is professional liability for the errors and cyber for the fraud, and both are inexpensive for a solo practice. We place them for independent bookkeepers, small firms and bookkeepers who also prepare taxes.
- Tax Preparers
A tax preparer needs professional liability (E&O) for errors that cost a client penalties and interest, and cyber, because the FTC treats a tax preparation business as a financial institution that must keep a written security program; in California a registered preparer also needs a $5,000 tax preparer bond. A tax preparer is sued for the number that cost the client money: the deadline missed, the credit not claimed, the return filed with an error the IRS found. Professional liability for tax preparers is a small, specific policy for that exposure, and the second policy a preparer needs is cyber, because a preparer's files hold every client's Social Security number and the IRS requires a written security plan to hold them. We place both for enrolled agents, seasonal preparers, franchise offices and bookkeepers who prepare returns, and the application is short.
What our accounting firm clients ask us.
Is malpractice insurance required for a CPA firm?
Not usually as a condition of the license itself. Some states make a professional corporation or limited liability partnership hold insurance or other security for claims, so check your board’s entity rules if the firm is organized that way. Beyond that, the requirement arrives from clients and lenders who ask for a certificate before an engagement, and from any buyer or merger partner, who will want to see continuous coverage with an unbroken retroactive date.
How much does accountants professional liability insurance cost?
It is priced on revenue and the mix of services first, then the number of professionals, claims history, the limit and the deductible. Tax and bookkeeping rate lowest, and audit, review and valuation work rate highest, because people outside the engagement rely on it. One recent quote from our own files, as an example rather than a range: in August 2026 an established five-person accounting and tax firm with about $1.3 million in revenue, three CPAs and no claims was quoted $4,133 a year for $5M per claim and $5M aggregate with a $2,500 deductible. That works out to about 0.3% of revenue at a high limit. A sole practitioner at a $1M limit should expect less and a firm with audit clients more, but we do not yet have enough of our own accountant quotes to put a range on either, so we will not guess one.
What does an accountant malpractice claim look like?
Most are small and procedural, like a missed election or extension, a late filing, a payroll deposit nobody made, and the penalties and interest that followed. The large ones come from reliance, where a lender, an investor or a buyer relied on financial statements you prepared or reviewed and lost money, or from an audit or review that did not catch an embezzlement. Report a possible claim when you learn of it, because a claims-made policy can refuse one you sat on.
What is tail coverage, and do I need it when I retire or close?
Professional liability is written claims-made, so it answers only claims made while a policy is in force, for work done after the retroactive date printed on it. Stop buying it and a claim about work you already did has nowhere to go. Tail coverage, an extended reporting period, keeps the right to report those claims open for a set number of years after the last policy ends. It is bought once, usually priced as a multiple of the last annual premium, and the decision is easiest to make before you cancel.
Does professional liability cover the client’s tax penalty?
The penalty and interest arising from your error, usually yes. The tax itself, generally no. That is money the client always owed and would have paid anyway, so paying it would put them in a better position than if you had been right. That distinction is where most accountant claims are actually argued, and it is worth being able to explain it to a client before it comes up rather than during. Some forms differ, so it is a wording question worth asking at quote.
We do bookkeeping and payroll as well. Does that change anything?
Yes, and it needs disclosing. Bookkeeping and payroll put you in the client’s money — direct access to accounts, payment runs, tax deposits — which adds a crime and social engineering exposure that a pure compliance practice does not have. It also adds a specific failure mode: missed payroll tax deposits generate penalties that accumulate fast and are attributed to whoever was running the process. Make sure the services you actually perform match what the policy describes.
What about audit and attest work?
It rates well above compliance and tax work, because audit claims are large and are brought by third parties who relied on the opinion — lenders, investors, buyers — rather than only by the client. Firms that perform even occasional attest engagements should say so explicitly; an accountant insured as a tax practice who signs an audit opinion has a coverage problem that only appears when the opinion is challenged.
Is a tax preparer or bookkeeper without a CPA license still insurable?
Yes, readily, and it is a different and cheaper market. Enrolled agents, tax preparers and bookkeepers all get professional liability written for the services they actually provide, and the exposure is real regardless of licensure — a client suing over a botched return does not care whether you held a CPA. What matters is describing the scope honestly, particularly whether you give advice or only process what you are given, since those price differently.
Commercial insurance is 96% of what we do — it is not a department here, it is the whole business. Not ready to talk? The guides answer the questions this page raises in more depth. Already insured with us and need a certificate or a policy change? Ask the service team rather than starting a quote — it is faster and it goes to the people whose job it is. We also write home and auto, which is usually cheaper alongside the business policy than apart from it.
Handed a lease, a vendor packet or a client contract with insurance requirements? Paste it into the COI Requirements Decoder to see what each one means for your business, or read what the requirements mean.