Real Estate Agent Insurance
Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane & Canberra

A real estate agency may handle sales, auctions, leasing and property management, with different responsibilities at each stage. Explain the services actually offered and the types of property involved. Residential sales, commercial leasing and management of short-stay premises should not automatically be treated as the same activity. Identify the entities, representatives and contractors working under the agency’s name. Describe whether the agency provides price opinions, marketing content, inspections or advice beyond the usual transaction process. The insured-services description needs to reflect the work clients rely on, including services added as the business grows.

Follow a typical instruction from appointment to completion. Identify who receives information from the owner, who prepares advertising and who checks material changes before publication. Inspections create a separate practical exposure involving visitors, access and the condition of premises. Explain the handling of keys, access codes, trust money and personal documents. Those matters can involve professional, public liability, cyber and crime questions with different triggers and exclusions. A professional indemnity arrangement for agency advice should not be assumed to include every loss involving a key, a payment instruction or an injury during an open home.

Retain agency appointments, advertising approvals and the source of significant property information. If the agency relies on an owner, contractor or another professional for a statement, record what was supplied and any clarification sought. Keep versions when descriptions, price instructions or disclosures change. A buyer or tenant may later rely on material that has been removed from the website, so the transaction record should explain what appeared at the relevant time. These records can help assess an allegation but do not by themselves establish that a representation was accurate or that a claim is covered.

Property management agreements require careful attention to authority and escalation. Clarify the scope for arranging repairs, instructing contractors and communicating urgent issues to owners. Record the instructions received and the timing of action, particularly when a matter remains unresolved. Review indemnities and insurance requirements in commercial client agreements against the proposed cover. Ask about prior work, retroactive dates and claims-made notification where professional indemnity is relevant. A certificate of currency cannot explain those provisions or determine whether an allegation concerning a past transaction falls within the current policy. The actual wording and transaction history need consideration.

Complaints can concern a statement made during an inspection, a missed instruction or a delay in acting on maintenance. Preserve the original communication and the relevant appointment, inspection and correspondence records. Keep factual observations separate from assumptions about another party’s intention. Identify who coordinates the agency’s response and checks insurance reporting requirements. A concern does not need to begin as a court claim to deserve careful review. Staff should avoid promising compensation or an insurance outcome before the allegation and applicable arrangements have been assessed through the appropriate process.

Before renewal, review new branches, acquired rent rolls, larger commercial clients and changes in the services offered. Consider whether former staff still hold system access or keys and whether records from acquired business can be retrieved. Check how a compromised email account or unavailable property management platform would affect settlements, rent processing and maintenance communications. Keep significant unresolved disputes available for the submission. The insurance review should reflect both the advice and administrative work performed by the agency, so questions about cover are grounded in its actual transactions and the practical responsibilities it accepts for clients. Record auction services and any authority to release transaction documents separately where these form part of the agency’s work.