Having spent the past six months explaining to their clients why premiums are rising, brokers now have to wear a premium rise themselves. Rates for the NIBA PI facility have increased by an average 20-25%.

Marsh Director Ray Armstrong, who manages the 21-year-old PI facility, said brokers would not be surprised by the premium rise. “It’s not a horrible increase,” he said. “In fact, it’s in line with brokers’ fee increases.”

The PI facility has led a sometimes-difficult existence, with one of the panel of underwriters – Lloyd’s-owned Resource Underwriting Pacific Limited – withdrawing from the facility earlier this year. The underwriters are now QBE, RE Brown Australia, Dexta, Royal & SunAlliance and CGU.

Mr Armstrong said the facility “has had its good years and its bad years. But over the past five years there have been some big claims, and in a relatively small premium pool like this, a big claim hurts.”

He said the premium rise is not disproportionate with other professions’ PI schemes, and it remains competitive.

The PI facility is attracting more brokers than ever, he said. But that’s a reflection of a difficult market rather than the much-touted excuse of the HIH collapse. Mr Armstrong said HIH has had one major effect on premiums: it forced underwriters to raise them more quickly than they may otherwise have done.

“HIH was an accelerator,” he said.