In the 1990's many Architects, in particular small to medium sized Practitioners and Practices, were experiencing great difficulty in obtaining skilled insurance and risk management advice as regards Professional Indemnity Insurance (at a competitive premium and broader policy coverage) and dealing with the legal liabilities they faced on a daily basis in practising their profession. On the initiative of Ronald Remmers of the PIA and with the support/agreement of the SAIA the Architects PI Scheme was set up over 25 years ago in consultation with specialist PI insurance advisor and broker, Chris Pearson.

In order to qualify for access to the APIGIS Scheme and the benefits being offered the Architect had to be a Member of good standing with SAIA and/or the Regional Institutes. This obviously created a valuable benefit to Membership of SAIA and/or Regional Institutes.

In 1999 a Trust was formed, the APIGIS Trust, solely to represent the interests of Architects and promote Membership of SAIA and the Regional Institutes. All the Trustees were, and still are, practising Professional Architects. The "vision" being a free service to the Profession overseen and managed "by Architects for Architects".

One of the main functions also being to oversee and manage the insurance and risk management service providers.

APIGIS was well received by the Practitioners and a base of over 600 policyholders was built up in a fairly short space of time.

APIGIS provides Architects with quick and easy access to competitive priced PI insurance and access to specialist PI insurance Brokers and Advisors - NMG Risk Managers - who have over 40 years experience in providing PI for Architects.

The APIGIS and the managers place the interests of Architects first and foremost.

Architects enjoy access to a single contact point for the advice, quotations and claims advocacy when they need it most

• Reduced premiums. PI insurance rates and premiums significantly lower than the general market. Two of the key negotiating points with Insurers being (a) a Member of the Institute represented a better risk profile due to the strict Institute Membership requirements, and, (b) the "bulking up" or bulk buying of many policyholders represented a much more financially attractive proposition to Insurers - both as regards premium income and reduced marketing and administration costs.
• The policy wording was improved significantly from the standard cover being offered by Insurers.
• Being an APIGIS policyholder provided the Practitioners with the comfort that they had a dedicated specialist contact person instead of having to "phone around" for any advice or assistance regarding:
• Queries regarding Insurance or Claims,
• Legal, Contractual or Risk Management queries eg, the recent examples of Duty of Care conditions being imposed by Financiers, How to deal with IDoW and "allocation or sharing" demands by Government and other Bodies, excessive Fee cutting, dealing with JV"s and sub-Consulting, dealing with non-standard building plans and supervision etc.
• Advice on Contracting in other Countries,