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Giorgos Koutinas, FounderSome of the people who shape a company’s most important projects may never appear on its payroll. Engineers, contractors and consultants bring expertise that contributes directly to success. Although outside the workforce, their decisions can influence outcomes and the risks a business must assess.
Understanding where those responsibilities intersect with business obligations is what Giorgos Koutinas, founder of KOUTINAS SA, excels at. His Greece-based specialist insurance consulting firm links project realities with insurers’ risk assessments. Giorgos helps clients look beyond policies to examine professional activities, contractual responsibilities and potential liabilities, identifying gaps in protection and making informed decisions about their work.
His role goes beyond arranging policies to advise clients on professional risks and available insurance solutions.
“I draw on my experience to help clients understand where they need to stand firm and how to make their case,” says Giorgos.
His perspective draws on both sides of the insurance relationship. Twelve years in engineering gave him firsthand knowledge of how technical projects operate and how decisions can create liability. He subsequently gained experience in underwriting engineering and corporate risks, complemented by extensive training at the French insurance group “Le Mans Assurances.” More than three decades of specialising in liability insurance and professional indemnity have brought those perspectives together, connecting professional responsibilities with the protection they require.
Giorgos helps businesses and professionals examine contractual obligations, recognise potential coverage gaps and make informed insurance decisions. Insurers and intermediaries also draw on his technical understanding to assess specialised professional exposures that require knowledge of the underlying work.
From Contract Specifications to Claims
A project’s insurance questions change from bidding and contract preparation to construction and claims. Giorgos has addressed these demands on major Greek infrastructure assignments.
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I draw on my experience to help clients understand where they need to stand firm and how to make their case.
For the Greek Ministry of Infrastructure, he worked on contractual insurance requirements. On the 600-kilometre “Egnatia Odos” motorway, he developed specifications for construction contracts and design and consulting engineering services. He also advised during the “Attiki Odos” concession bid.
He advised on insurance matters related to subcontracted works for the “Rio-Antirrio Bridge” and supported the “Athens Olympic Metro” claims team in loss adjustment involving specialised damage to works and third-party claims. Beyond infrastructure, the Greek System of Accreditation sought his advice on liabilities affecting certification bodies, laboratories and vehicle technical control centres.
Turning a Gap into an Opportunity
When Giorgos entered Greece’s insurance market in the early 1990s, professional indemnity was unfamiliar to many businesses and professionals. Training in France had introduced him to more established practices. He wanted Greece to recognise professional liability as a practical responsibility, rather than an unusual insurance product, particularly in engineering contracts and in the construction of public works, and in recent years of public-private partnership (PPP) projects.
Progress was slow. Giorgos continued advocating for professional indemnity requirements in public works contracts and wrote an open letter to relevant organisations and the market when resistance persisted. Seminars at the Technical Chamber of Greece, specialist articles and his “professionalliability.gr” platform extended the discussion beyond clients.
“It is an issue that is still open,” he says. His persistence reflects a conviction that professionals cannot manage liabilities they have not learned to recognise.
He also sees opportunities for international insurers, reinsurers and managing general agents. Markets with limited liability insurance penetration “may represent untapped insurance opportunities,” he says. KOUTINAS SA previously developed a professional indemnity business under a Lloyd’s binding authority, while Giorgos built broker relationships in Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania. Wider participation requires stronger underwriting capacity and training as responsibilities evolve across engineering, certification, laboratory testing, financial intermediation, cross-border consulting and medical malpractice.
In October 2021, KOUTINAS SA transferred its insurance portfolio and personnel to CROMAR SA. Giorgos remains a CROMAR board member and professional indemnity adviser, focusing on consulting for insurers, intermediaries and professionals rather than direct brokerage.
For Giorgos, recognition as Top Liability Insurance Expert in Europe 2026 carries personal significance, drawing wider attention to professional liability issues he has spent decades urging Greece to address.
When Liability Coverage Must Match Professional Exposure
Liability insurance can look adequate on paper while leaving the underlying professional exposure poorly understood. The gap usually appears when proposal forms are generic or policy wording does not reflect the insured activity. Contract terms can create obligations that the cover was never designed to absorb. For executives, the difficult part is not simply obtaining a policy. It is testing whether underwriting begins with the work actually performed and the legal responsibilities attached to it.
Risk definition deserves close attention because professional liability often develops around decisions, omissions, design work or advice rather than damage to a physical asset. Engineers, consultants, designers and other experts may receive claims long after they have performed work, especially in cases when the responsibility was transferred out of the scope of the service charge specified in the contract documents. In such situations, it is important for the customer to find out whether the provider pays close attention to the insured activity and complies with that in preparing proposal forms and policy documentation. Standardised documentation may be a good solution, but it may, at the same time, obscure the mismatch between the service performed and the protection purchased.
Underwriting quality is equally important in markets where professional liability practice is still developing. Capacity alone does not address a poorly framed risk. The provider must be able to explain the impact of exclusions on insured activities, as well as indicate in which type of insurance the knowledge of international underwriting may benefit local underwriting. This is especially true for engineering and technical activities, consulting across borders, financial intermediation and specialist investigations, as there are emerging complexities in performing professional tasks and liabilities that span legal or geographical boundaries. A purchaser should also distinguish between a broker who simply places cover and one who can translate professional risk into terms an insurer can underwrite with discipline.
“KOUTINAS SA focuses on understanding what the professional actually does and where contractual responsibility arises before presenting that exposure for underwriting.”
Market access provides an additional challenge. Domestic insurers may be inexperienced with specialist liability risks, while foreign insurers or reinsurers may not have enough local business understanding to determine proper rates or structure coverage properly. The effective intermediary can connect the two parties while using international providers without neglecting the local market knowledge. Access to specialist markets is only important when combined with appropriate underwriting and wordings that reflect the profession of the insured.
Mandatory insurance provides an additional difficulty. Uninformed people making purchases just to comply with laws will make decisions about minimum coverage based on what meets the requirement, but they do not do anything about the risks. Leaders should find a provider that uses compulsory insurance as a base for comparison with the limits, terms and exclusions that correspond to the profession.
KOUTINAS SA approaches liability insurance by translating the insured professional activity into coverage terms rather than treating the policy as an administrative purchase. Its work draws on engineering knowledge and specialist liability experience, supported by access developed through international insurance markets and Lloyd’s-related professional indemnity activity. KOUTINAS SA focuses on understanding what the professional actually does and where contractual responsibility arises before presenting that exposure for underwriting. That process supports more deliberate policy wording and market placement for professional liability risks. For buyers that need specialist advice rather than simple policy distribution, KOUTINAS SA merits consideration where technical risk interpretation and access to appropriate underwriting capacity are central to the decision.
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