In communications and marketing the loss rarely arises with you: it arises with the owner of an image you used and with the client whose campaign you have to have reprinted.
The calculator and the quote form below are in Dutch. Prefer to do this in English? Email info@finassverzekert. nl or call 072 - 509 24 56 and we will take it from there.
Work out for yourself what it would cost.
Enter your details; you will receive a proposal within one working day.
We compare the offerings of several insurers
An adviser checks whether the cover suits your activities
A premium indication, not personal advice. Prefer to talk it through? Call 072 - 509 24 56.
In brief
The risk in this sector is almost always purely financial. Nothing is broken and nobody is hurt. A letter before action arrives from a photographer, a rights holder or a trade mark owner. That is pure financial loss and belongs with professional indemnity insurance. And there lies the catch: many policies exclude infringement of intellectual property specifically. For an agency working daily with images, text, music and brands, that is precisely the claim you want insured. Have this point expressly checked before you take out cover.
The second line is access. If you manage clients' advertising accounts, mailing lists, CMS environments or social media, you hold keys to systems and personal data that are not yours. A hacked advertising account with budget siphoned off, a wrongly addressed mailing containing client data or a deleted website hits your client's finances directly. Cover for that runs through cyber insurance with third-party liability, not through an ordinary liability policy.
Under the GDPR you are usually a processor for your client. That calls for a processing agreement and for arrangements about who reports a data breach. Fines from the regulator cannot be insured. Your client's loss and the cost of investigation and repair often can.
What does insurance for communications and marketing cover?
The structure of the cover in three parts, with an overview per situation below.
The basics
Liability
AVB for property damage and injury, BAV for professional errors.
Damage to third parties
Employers' liability
Care, custody and control as an extension
Your business
Assets and continuity
Business contents, goods and lost turnover during downtime.
Business contents at replacement value as new
Goods at cost price
Business interruption or additional costs
If you employ people
Staff
Sickness absence, accidents and the traffic risk.
Continued pay for 104 weeks
Group personal accident
WEGAS for traffic risks
What is covered
Situation
AVB
BAV
Cyber
Injury to a visitor or customer
Yes
No
No
Damage to a client's property
Sometimes
No
No
Financial loss caused by an advisory or calculation error
No
Yes
No
Downtime after a ransomware attack
No
No
Yes
Data breach involving personal data
No
Sometimes
Yes
Damage to property in your care
No
No
No
This overview is general in nature and is not personal advice. What is actually covered, including exclusions, limits and the excess, is set out in the policy conditions and the insurance card (verzekeringskaart) of the insurer; you receive both before you take out cover. Taking out cover without advice? Then read what execution only means for you.
Where things go wrong in practice
Four points that make the difference between a policy that pays out and one that does not.
Check whether IP infringement is excluded
This is the first question to put to an insurer. Standard policies for advisory professions regularly exclude claims for infringement of copyright, trade mark rights or image rights, because those do not arise for an accountant. At a creative agency they are the core risk. Ask for a policy in which these claims are expressly included, and have the exception to the exclusion confirmed in writing before the cover starts.
Licences apply per form of use, not per image
A stock photo with a web rights licence may not simply be used on a billboard, on packaging or in a television commercial. The same goes for music, typefaces and design rights. Record for each asset which licence you bought, for which channel, which territory and which period. When a letter before action arrives, that record is your only defence, and it determines whether you can pass the cost back to the supplier of the image.
Reprint costs are not covered but are the biggest item
A wrong telephone number on a hundred thousand flyers, a wrong address on packaging, a campaign that has to go out again. The cost of redoing your own work is excluded on virtually every professional indemnity policy. That is a business risk. What can be covered is the consequential loss suffered by your client. So work with a signed proof approval, so that responsibility for the final check is on record.
What you cannot insure
The following are not covered: fines from the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch data protection authority) and other regulators, the cost of your own remedial work, reputational damage to your client without demonstrable financial loss, and use of images or music you knew you had no right to. That runs into the deliberate act exclusion in Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code. Guarantees of results in terms of reach, conversion or ranking are contractual promises that no insurer will take on either.
What does your premium depend on?
Services within the agency. Strategy, content production, media buying and web development each weigh differently in the risk profile.
Annual turnover. The basis of calculation; media budgets passed on can distort turnover considerably.
Including IP infringement. Cover for copyright, trade mark and image rights claims is assessed and priced separately.
Managing client accounts and data. Access to advertising accounts, CMS and mailing lists calls for cyber cover with third-party liability.
Volume of printed and physical material. Large print runs and packaging considerably increase the consequential loss from a single mistake.
Territory and run-off period. Campaigns outside the Netherlands and the run-off period after termination determine the loading.
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
How we arrange it
You request a quoteWe take stock of your activities, turnover and wishes.
We compareseveral insurers, on premium as well as conditions.
You receive a proposalWith an explanation of the differences and the exclusions.
We arrange the switchIncluding cancellation, so there is no gap in cover.
Customers rate our service on four aspects: personal service, service delivery, availability and the outcome. The reviews are collected and published by NH1816 and come from customers who have actually taken out a policy with Finass Advies B.V. or reported a claim.
A photographer has sent us a letter before action about an image on our site. Is that covered?
Only if infringement of intellectual property is included on your policy. On many advisory policies it is specifically excluded. If the cover is there, the first step is to consider whether the claim is justified and whether you can produce a licence. Report the letter straight away and pay nothing in advance: settling on your own without consulting the insurer can cost you your right to payment.
Who is liable if the client supplied the image?
In reality the rights holder approaches whoever published, and that is often you. You can then hold the client to the warranty they gave. So state in your terms that the client warrants the rights to material they supply and indemnifies you. Keep the email in which it was supplied. Without that evidence you are empty-handed against both parties.
Are we a processor or a controller?
When carrying out mailings, managing client databases or setting up advertising audiences, you are normally a processor for your client. That requires a processing agreement setting out who reports a data breach and within what period. Where you determine the purpose and means yourself, for instance for your own newsletter, you are the controller and the duty to report a data breach rests entirely with you.
Do we also need public and employers' liability insurance (AVB)?
As soon as you work on location: filming at a client's premises, a stand at a trade fair, an activation in a public space. That is when property damage and injury arise, and those fall outside professional indemnity insurance. If you work solely from the office and digitally, the risk is limited to visitors at your own premises. Equipment you take with you belongs under business assets.
Finass Verzekert is a trading name of Finass Advies B.V. We advise on and arrange non-life insurance on the basis of an objective analysis of several insurers, and receive commission for this from the insurer, which is included in the premium. You pay no separate advice fee. Before you take out cover, we establish your wishes and needs.
You will find our licence, KvK and Kifid details and our complaints procedure at the foot of every page.
