# The brokerage's policy is written for the brokerage, not for the coordinator

> Three specialist brokers describe the same claim profile: missed deadlines, missing signatures, the wrong version of a contract. One publishes a premium range. The market-size and premium-saving figures circulating alongside them are not sourced at all.

**Section:** The Desk  
**Published:** August 10, 2026  
**Byline:** TC Bulletin Staff  
**Canonical URL:** https://tcbulletin.com/desk/coordinator-eo-coverage-gap  
**Publisher:** TC Bulletin (tcbulletin.com)

## Key points

- Specialist brokers state that a broker's errors and omissions policy is written around the broker's licensed activities and may not extend to an independent coordinator's own entity or its unlicensed services.
- One broker reports that generic brokerage forms sometimes exclude coordinator activity outright or treat it as ancillary, which also affects in-house coordinators.
- Three brokers independently describe the same claim triggers: lapsed contingencies, missing or unexecuted documents, wrong contract versions, misdirected documents and MLS data errors.
- Allen Thomas Group publishes an errors and omissions range of roughly $400 to over $7,000 a year, with many solo coordinators at about $40 to $90 a month.
- A claimed 3% to 5% premium discount for heavy coordinator use, and a $1.2 billion market size for this insurance line, are published without a named insurer, sample or methodology.

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Ask a room of coordinators who carries the insurance on their work and a good number will say the brokerage does. It is a reasonable assumption. It is also the assumption three specialist brokers are all, independently, in the business of correcting.

## What the brokers say the gap is

Allen Thomas Group states the position most plainly. Its material says a broker's policy is written to cover the broker's licensed activities and may not extend to an independent contractor's separate coordinator entity or to its non-licensed services.

PBI Group Solutions makes a second point that catches a group who assume they are safest. It reports that in-house coordinators are often inadequately covered because generic brokerage errors and omissions forms either exclude coordinator activity outright or treat it as ancillary. On that account, being an employee is not by itself an answer to the question.

CRES, which is a Gallagher company, frames the exposure differently again, and in a way worth sitting with: you can be named in a lawsuit simply because you were involved in the transaction. Being right is not the same as not being sued.

## Where three sellers agree

All three sell this product, so none of them is a neutral witness. What gives their account weight is that they describe the same claim profile without describing the same product, and the profile matches the actual shape of the job.

- Deadlines. Lapsed inspection, appraisal and financing contingencies, and critical dates that slipped.
- Documents. Missing signatures, unexecuted addenda, and the wrong version of a contract, typically discovered once a lawsuit has been filed.
- Misdirection. Documents sent to the wrong recipient.
- Data. MLS entry errors that turn into misrepresentation disputes.
- Cyber. Breach or theft of client personal information, loan files and wire instructions, and business email compromise aimed at closing funds.

That last line is the one that connects this to the fraud beat. The same transaction profile that attracts a diverted wire also produces the claim, and the coordinator who handles the instruction is inside both.

## The numbers that exist

Allen Thomas Group is the only one of the three publishing figures. It puts errors and omissions cover at roughly $400 to over $7,000 a year, with many solo coordinators at about $40 to $90 a month, cyber liability from several hundred dollars to around $850 or more a year, and a business owner's policy from a few hundred to about a thousand.

### Published ranges, one broker

| Measure | Value | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Errors and omissions | $400 to $7,000+ | Per year |
| Typical solo coordinator | $40 to $90 | Per month |
| Cyber liability | Several hundred to $850+ | Per year |
| Business owner's policy | A few hundred to about $1,000 | Per year |

> **Read these as a price list, not a market survey.** These are one broker's published ranges for its own book. They are useful for setting expectations before a quote and they are not evidence of what the market charges.

## The numbers that do not

Two figures circulate in this area that a coordinator should not repeat, and the reason is the same in both cases: nobody has shown their working.

The first is a claim that brokerages using coordinators on more than 75% of files often receive discounted errors and omissions premiums, typically 3% to 5%. It appears in a post published by AIDE Real Estate Transactional Support, dated 20 October 2023 and updated 1 March 2024. No insurer is named, no study is cited and no data is shown. AIDE sells coordination services, so the claim is also a sales argument for its own product.

The second is a market size. A Market Intelo report page values this insurance line at $1.2 billion in 2025, forecasts $1.9 billion by 2034 at a 6.3% compound rate, and breaks out North America at $663 million, or 55.2%. The page says the analysis rests on primary and secondary research conducted through the fourth quarter of 2025 and verified as of June 2026. It names no data source, no sample, no methodology and no basis for treating the figures as measured rather than modelled. The report also carries the structural hallmarks of templated production, with the same chapter scaffolding, methodology graphics and generic question sets repeating across unrelated reports on the same site.

> A number with no method behind it is not a small number or a large one. It is not a number.
>
> TC Bulletin, Editorial position

TC Bulletin is not saying either figure is wrong. It is saying neither is checkable, which for a profession being asked to make a purchasing decision amounts to the same thing.

## The licensing question underneath

Allen Thomas Group notes that most coordinators are not required to hold a real estate licence, and warns against crossing into activity that would require one, naming negotiating terms, advising on value and counselling a party on contractual decisions.

That matters for insurance and not only for regulators. A policy written around unlicensed coordination services is a policy written around a defined scope of work. Work performed outside that scope is exactly the work least likely to be covered, which means the licensing line and the coverage line tend to sit in the same place.

## What to actually do

1. Get the brokerage's policy in writing rather than in conversation, and look for whether independent contractors and coordination services are named.
2. If you operate through your own entity, assume the brokerage's cover stops at the brokerage until a document tells you otherwise.
3. Check whether coordinator activity is excluded or treated as ancillary in the form, which is the point PBI raises and the one least likely to come up unprompted.
4. Price cyber separately. Wire instructions and client files sit on your systems, and general errors and omissions cover is not written for a breach.
5. Describe your actual scope to the broker in the words you would use to a regulator. A policy bought on a vague description is a policy argued about later.

> **What we have not done.** TC Bulletin has not reviewed any policy wording. Everything above is what these brokers publish about their own products. Coverage is decided by the form you sign and by the brokerage's form, not by a marketing page or by this story. Read both, and take the licensing question to your state regulator rather than to an insurer.

### Sources for this story

- [Allen Thomas Group, transaction coordinator insurance](https://allenthomasgroup.com/commercial-insurance/industries/professional-services/transaction-coordinator/): Broker. Publishes premium ranges and the licensed-activity statement
- [CRES, a Gallagher company](https://www.cresinsurance.com/insurance-real-estate-specialty/transaction-coordinator/): Broker. Cover backed by A.M. Best A-rated carriers
- [PBI Group Solutions](https://pbigroupsolutions.com/who-we-insure/transaction-coordinators/): Broker. Raises the in-house exclusion point
- [AIDE Real Estate Transactional Support](https://www.aide-re.com/post/how-transaction-coordinators-can-save-you-money-on-e-o-insurance): Source of the unsourced 3% to 5% discount claim
- [Market Intelo report page](https://marketintelo.com/report/real-estate-transaction-coordinator-eo-insurance-market): Source of the unsourced market size figures

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## Sources cited

- Allen Thomas Group: https://allenthomasgroup.com/commercial-insurance/industries/professional-services/transaction-coordinator/
- CRES Insurance: https://www.cresinsurance.com/insurance-real-estate-specialty/transaction-coordinator/
- PBI Group Solutions: https://pbigroupsolutions.com/who-we-insure/transaction-coordinators/

Topics: insurance, unlicensed-assistants, wire-fraud

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