Professional indemnity insurance covers a surveyor when a client claims the survey was negligent: the legal costs of defending the claim and any damages awarded. The IIMS Small Craft Code of Practice requires its yacht and small craft surveyors to keep it in force at all times, at a realistic level for their work and status.
What a surveyor checks
The cover level against the boats surveyed, and the duty to notify. ITIC advises notifying any circumstance that could become a claim to the PI insurer. In one case it reported, a surveyor defeated a claim of over $5 million, and the legal costs still came to over $200,000. See professional indemnity insurance.
In the report
Surveyors often show their cover on the report itself, next to their memberships: "Professional indemnity insurance held with [insurer], policy reference on request."