Test devices · financial loss · licences
Liability insurance for a self-employed app developer
When building an app, something rarely gets broken. The first question is therefore not how much the AVB covers, but whether your actual risk belongs on this policy at all.
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Deze pagina in het Nederlands: Aansprakelijkheidsverzekering voor een zelfstandige app developer.
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
- We arrange the switch, including cancellation
A premium indication, not personal advice. Prefer to talk it through? Call 072 - 509 24 56.
In brief
The public and employers' liability insurance covers injury and damaged property. For an app developer that means, in concrete terms: the monitor you pull off the table at a client's office, the client's laptop you drop, the visitor who trips over a cable in your workspace and damage to a hot desk or rented office. Those are real losses, but they are not the losses that keep you awake.
What does keep you awake falls outside it. A bug that makes an ordering app unusable for a weekend, a payment link that debits twice or a release that comes late: the customer suffers financial loss without anything being broken. That is the province of professional indemnity insurance. If personal data leak through your code or through your own account, it is about remediation, the duty to notify and claims from data subjects, and that belongs on a cyber insurance.
Also pay attention to the device lab. Devices you have on loan from a client to test on are in your care without your owning them. That is the classic care, custody and control exclusion: if you damage them, the AVB does not pay. The AVB is not intended for your own equipment in any event. You insure that as business contents or through a package for self-employed professionals in IT.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare public and employers' liability insurance (AVB).
What to look out for
Four points that lead to a refusal in software development more often than the level of cover does.
Your core risk is money, not damage to property
Almost every claim against a developer is about lost turnover, remedial work by another party or a failed delivery. That is pure financial loss and it is excluded on the AVB. Without professional indemnity cover you bear not only the claim but also the cost of legal defence, which mounts up quickly in a disputed delivery.
Other people's equipment in your keeping
Test devices, a borrowed laptop with the customer's development environment or hardware you have on your desk for an integration fall under the care, custody and control exclusion. If you do want that covered, ask for care, custody and control cover or include the equipment in business contents cover, and record in writing what you have on loan.
What falls outside the cover
Alongside financial loss and property in your care, the following are excluded: infringement of copyright and licence conditions, for example when using a library under the wrong licence; administrative fines such as those from the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch data protection authority); contractual penalties and guarantees that go further than liability in law; and intent under Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code.
What you declare in the application
Do you only build apps, or does your software also control physical equipment, such as locks, thermostats or machines? The latter changes the risk materially, because your code can then indeed cause damage to property. Declare your activities correctly; an incomplete declaration touches Articles 7:928 and 7:930 DCC and can limit the payout.
What does your premium depend on?
- Annual turnover: the basis for a sole trader
- Described business activity: building weighs differently from advising on architecture
- Working on site at clients' premises: determines the chance of damage to third parties' property
- Third parties' equipment in your keeping: test devices and borrowed hardware
- Area of cover: clients outside the European Union change the picture
- Sum insured and excess: per claim and per insurance year
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | AVB | BAV |
|---|---|---|
| You pull a monitor off the table at a client's office while connecting it | Yes | No |
| A visitor trips over a cable in your workspace and breaks an arm | Yes | No |
| Your code controls a thermostat and an error causes the customer's installation to freeze | Provided that | No |
| The client sends you the bill from the agency that had to put your code right | No | Yes |
| Delivery runs two weeks late and the customer claims for a missed campaign | No | No |
| Your laptop with the complete development environment is stolen from the car | No | No |
As soon as your code controls physical equipment, part of your risk shifts from the right-hand to the left-hand column.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
A bug in my app cost the customer turnover. Is that covered?
Not on this policy. No one was injured and nothing was broken. The customer lost money. That is pure financial loss, and professional indemnity insurance exists for it. With that policy, watch the basis of cover: usually the moment the claim is made counts, not the moment you wrote the code.
I dropped a test phone belonging to the client.
You had that device in your care without owning it, and the care, custody and control exclusion excludes that loss on the standard policy. Some insurers offer limited care, custody and control cover for an additional premium. Without that extension you pay for the device yourself; when borrowing, therefore, record what you receive, in what condition and who bears the risk.
User data has leaked from my app. What covers what?
Not the AVB. Remediation costs, forensic investigation, notifying the regulator and claims from users belong on a cyber insurance. A fine from the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens is outside cover everywhere, because it is a punishment and not compensation. Report an incident straight away: Article 7:941 of the Dutch Civil Code requires you to report in good time.
I used a library under a licence that was not permitted. What then?
Infringement of intellectual property is excluded on an AVB and is limited or likewise excluded on most professional indemnity policies. Check licences before you take code over, therefore, and set out in your conditions who is responsible for components and images supplied by the customer.
Read more
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