Insurance for Transportation & Mobility Planners
Coverage for transportation and mobility planners: corridor studies, active transportation and safety action plans, Vision Zero work, multimodal plans, travel modeling and grant support for agencies.
Your forecasts and recommendations shape what agencies fund and build. When a study is challenged, or a project built from it does not perform, the claim goes back to the analysis.
Where Transportation Planners Carry Risk
Forecasts and models
Traffic, ridership and VMT forecasts are relied on for funding and design. Assumptions that are not stated become the argument after the fact.
Safety plans and crash data
A safety action plan that ranked a corridor low can be cited after a crash on it. How the plan describes its method and limits matters.
Planning next to engineering
Concept layouts and recommendations can drift into design. If you are not the engineer of record, your deliverables and contract should say so.
Grant applications
Benefit cost analyses and narratives you prepare support a client’s funding request. A lost grant is rarely your fault, but errors in the numbers can be.
Public agency contracts
State DOTs, MPOs and cities write the contract. Indemnity, limits and insurance wording are often fixed, so the policy has to meet them.
The Stack Most Transportation & Mobility Planners Carry.
Agency contracts set the limits. Cyber matters once you hold agency or survey data.
Hover a layer to see what it covers. Every firm is different, so treat this as a starting point.
The Corridor that Did Not Perform.
A planning firm prepares a corridor study recommending a road diet, using counts from a single week in a holiday month. The city builds it. Congestion and complaints follow, and the city spends to partially reverse it. Its attorney asks whether the study met the standard of care.
What decides it: the data period and limits the study disclosed, whether the city’s staff reviewed and adopted the method, and whether the deliverable was a plan or a design. A clear methods section is the cheapest protection a planner has.
Hypothetical example for illustration. Coverage for any claim depends on the policy terms and the facts.
Clauses Transportation & Mobility Planners See Most.
No forecast is a warranty. Ask for standard of care language. Most professional liability policies exclude guarantees.
If your scope is planning, say so. Design responsibility can change what the carrier thinks it is insuring.
Agency minimums vary. We check your limits against the contract before you sign, not when the certificate is due.
Carriers Don’t Always Understand What You Do.
Planning firms deliver advice, forecasts and public process, not drawings. Carriers built around design firms do not always know where that work fits.
When the work is misread
- Written on a form whose definition of professional services leaves out planning, engagement or grant work
- Treated like a traffic engineer and priced for design you do not do
- Agency data and survey responses left without cyber coverage
- Certificates that miss the additional insured and waiver wording primes and agencies ask for
How we submit your firm
- Planning, modeling, engagement and grant work each named on the application
- Any licensed design work separated out, with who signs it
- Limits matched to the agency and prime contracts you actually hold
- Certificate wording checked against the contract before it goes out
Questions We Hear From Transportation & Mobility Planners.
Planning firms often work as subconsultants to large engineering primes on agency projects. Most questions are about certificates: what the prime and the agency want, and how fast it can be updated.
Answers are general. Your policy and your contract always control.
Ask yours on a 15-minute callThe prime wants both itself and the transit agency as additional insured. Can you do that?
Usually, yes, on general liability when your written contract requires it. Many business policies include blanket additional insured wording for that. Professional liability normally does not add additional insureds. We read the subconsultant agreement and issue the certificate to match it.
My subconsultant agreement asks for a waiver of subrogation on workers' comp.
Some states and policies allow a blanket waiver and some need a specific endorsement, which may carry a small charge. In a few cases it is not available. We check your policy and the state before the certificate goes out and tell you plainly if it cannot be done.
Every prime wants a new certificate when my policies renew.
That is normal. Certificates show the current policy term, so each renewal means new ones for each active project. Send us the list of primes and projects and we update them together.
Do I need cyber insurance if I am a small planning firm?
If you hold agency data, rider or survey responses, or employee records, it is worth having, and more agency contracts now ask for it. Professional liability is not built for a breach. Lining its renewal up with your other policies keeps things simple.
Do transportation planners need the same coverage as traffic engineers?
Not always. A firm that only plans can often be written on a planning or miscellaneous professional form. Once someone seals designs, it needs an engineering form. We look at what you actually deliver.
What limits do state DOTs and MPOs usually require?
Commonly $1M to $2M per claim for professional liability, plus general liability, auto and workers’ compensation. It varies by agency and project size, so we read the contract.
Am I covered if I work as a subconsultant on a DBE team?
Your own policy covers your own work. The prime will ask for a certificate, sometimes additional insured status on your general liability, and limits that match the prime contract. We handle the certificate wording.
Does my policy cover grant writing?
It depends on the definition of professional services. If grant applications and benefit cost analysis are a real part of your work, they should be named on the application.
Straight Answers
Not sure how your firm was classified?
Send us your current policy or application. We’ll tell you how your work reads to an underwriter.
Review My CoverageTell Us About Your Firm. We’ll Tell You What We See.
Starting out or renewing, with a policy in hand or not. If something is worth discussing, we’ll call. If not, we’ll say so.