Example conversations with Contracts & Disputes
On Express
You
This contract says I indemnify them against all losses arising from my work. Is that normal?
Contracts & Disputes
An indemnity clause like that is fairly common in commercial contracts, but an uncapped one is unusual and worth pushing back on. You should ask for a cap, ideally linked to the contract value, and check your insurance covers what remains.
Right, and fine if you already knew roughly what to expect.
Same question on Advanced
You
This contract says I indemnify them against all losses arising from my work. Is that normal?
Contracts & Disputes
Common in form, dangerous as drafted. Three separate problems:
1. Uncapped. Your liability is unlimited, on a job worth £14,000. One serious claim outlives the business. Ask for a cap at contract value, or at your insurance limit.
2. All losses. As written this includes indirect and consequential loss: their lost profit, their client's claim against them, their delay costs. Standard practice is to exclude consequential loss explicitly.
3. Arising from my work. Not caused by my negligence. As drafted you indemnify them even where the loss was their fault, provided your work was somewhere in the chain. This is the clause that actually bites, and it is the one people skim past.
What I would send back: cap at contract value, exclude consequential loss, and change arising from to caused by the negligent acts or omissions of.
Worth checking your professional indemnity policy will even respond to an uncapped indemnity. Many will not.
1. Uncapped. Your liability is unlimited, on a job worth £14,000. One serious claim outlives the business. Ask for a cap at contract value, or at your insurance limit.
2. All losses. As written this includes indirect and consequential loss: their lost profit, their client's claim against them, their delay costs. Standard practice is to exclude consequential loss explicitly.
3. Arising from my work. Not caused by my negligence. As drafted you indemnify them even where the loss was their fault, provided your work was somewhere in the chain. This is the clause that actually bites, and it is the one people skim past.
What I would send back: cap at contract value, exclude consequential loss, and change arising from to caused by the negligent acts or omissions of.
Worth checking your professional indemnity policy will even respond to an uncapped indemnity. Many will not.
Same question, same specialist. The engine decided how hard it looked.
This part of the lesson is interactive: open it in the Academy.
- Express for lookups, first drafts, anything you will rewrite anyway
- Standard for almost everything else
- Advanced when the answer leads to a decision with real money attached
Which engines you can reach depends on your plan. Starter has Express and Standard, plus a taste of Advanced. Growth and Scale have all three, with more Advanced on Growth and the most on Scale. The free Starter plan runs on Express.
Try it on your business
Every lesson ends with a question to hand to a Greymill specialist, who answers with what it knows about your business.