A professional error without broken property: how should financial loss be analysed?

Compensation duties go beyond repairing objects

The gov.pt guide addresses losses and negligent errors or omissions in services. Civil Code article 564 distinguishes actual loss from benefits the injured party failed to obtain; article 563 requires the statutory causal connection. These provisions help frame questions but do not make every alleged loss compensable or insured.

Sources: gov.pt — Professional liability insurance in Portugal, updated 11 May 2026; accessed 28 October 2026 ↗ · Diário da República — Civil Code, articles 563 and 564; accessed 28 October 2026 ↗

Separate the components before discussing the total

Fictional exercise: a client attributes EUR600 of additional expenditure and EUR900 of expected lost benefit to a service error. Each component needs its own explanation and evidence. Their EUR1,500 sum is neither an established compensation amount nor an insurance-payment illustration.

Request a dated description of the service, alleged failure and chain leading to each loss. A sales forecast alone, for example, does not establish the net benefit that would have been obtained. Never alter messages or records to make the account fit a hypothesis.

Bring the damage category into the policy comparison

Ask explicitly how the quotation treats financial loss without bodily injury or property damage, sometimes described as pure financial loss. Check definitions, insured activities, exclusions, relevant dates and applicable limits. «Liability» in a product title does not settle the question.

Keep the claim amount separate from defence costs and any duty to redo the work or refund fees. Do not add these items as though they were one insured benefit. Request a clause reference for each answer and identify unresolved points.

Reviewing insurance and notifying a claim are different steps

For an RC Profissional quotation, tell RMACHADO about the services and scenarios to compare, without client data in the first enquiry. A claim already received belongs in the existing policy's notification process. Do not wait for a new quotation or make commitments on the insurer's behalf.