Liability insurance for a cleaning company
A cleaning company works in clients' buildings, usually outside office hours and with nobody watching. As a result, every claim starts with the question of what exactly happened.
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In brief
The most common loss is material damage to the client's building or fit-out: the wrong product on natural stone or a poured floor, scratches from a scrubber dryer on parquet, a monitor pulled over, a blocked drain that overflows. Third-party property damage is exactly what public and employers' liability insurance exists for, but there is a catch in the conditions. Insurers exclude damage to property being worked on or with. The surface you were cleaning is therefore the most vulnerable position. The rest of the building falls outside that.
The second theme is your staff. Slipping on a wet floor, lifting and pushing machines, skin and respiratory complaints from cleaning products: those are the claims that fall under Article 7:658 of the Dutch Civil Code, where you must show that you gave instructions and supervised. In this sector you work a great deal with on-call and agency staff, often with a language barrier. Through subsection 4 of that article your duty of care also covers hired-in workers. Instructions in a language the employee understands, and the safety data sheets for your products, are the evidence here.
What is not covered: the loss of keys and the cost of a new master key system, because that is pure financial loss; theft or vandalism by an employee, because intent is excluded under Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code; fines and deductions imposed by a client because a clean was missed; and redoing poorly performed work, which is performance of the contract. Contamination of soil or water by a discharged product belongs on an environmental damage insurance.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare public and employers' liability insurance (AVB).
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What to look out for
Four subjects that cause more argument in cleaning work than the sum insured.
The surface you are treating
A discoloured marble floor or a damaged wooden worktop is damage to the item you were working on. Ask expressly, therefore, about a care, custody and control or treatment clause and have its scope written down. Also work with recorded working instructions for each client and each substrate. That limits both the damage and the argument about blame.
Keys, passes and alarm codes
You have access to buildings outside working hours. If a set of keys is lost, replacing the cylinders is financial loss without any damaged property and therefore not covered. If burglary damage arises because an employee did not set the alarm, the argument is a different one. Record for each site who holds keys and log their issue.
Third parties in the building while you work
A visitor slipping on a freshly mopped floor is the classic injury claim in this work. The test under Article 6:162 of the Dutch Civil Code is about precautions: was there a warning sign, did you work in strips so that a dry route remained, was the walkway cordoned off? Photograph the cordon on larger jobs.
Subcontracting and hired-in labour
If you use a fellow firm at a site, you remain contractually answerable and can be held liable yourself under Article 6:171 of the Dutch Civil Code for their mistakes. Ask for a policy schedule and record the recovery arrangement in writing. For specialist work such as facade cleaning or working at height, it must also fall within your stated capacity.
What does your premium depend on?
- Payroll and workforce: the basis for the employers' section
- Share of agency and on-call workers: they fall under the same duty of care
- Type of objects: offices, care institutions, production areas or private homes
- Specialist work: window cleaning at height, facade cleaning or disaster restoration
- Care, custody and control cover: for the item being worked on
- Requirements from specifications: clients often prescribe a minimum level of cover
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | AVB | Care, custody and control cover |
|---|---|---|
| A scrubber dryer knocks a glass draught door out of its track | Yes | No |
| An employee pulls a monitor off a desk while vacuuming | Yes | No |
| The wooden conference table you polish afterwards shows ring marks | No | Yes |
| The carpet you deep clean shrinks and comes away from the subfloor | No | Yes |
| The client charges a deduction because an evening clean was skipped | No | No |
| Cleaning product washes through a gully into surface water | No | No |
Everything you touch in order to clean it falls under care, custody and control. The rest of the building remains ordinary third-party property damage.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
We damage a stone floor with the wrong product. Is that covered?
That depends on the care, custody and control provision. The floor was at that moment the item you were working on, and that category is excluded as standard. With a care, custody and control or treatment clause the loss can be insured, usually with a separate excess. Damage arising alongside it, for example to an adjoining wall or to furniture, falls outside that exclusion.
An employee loses a client's set of keys.
The cost of new cylinders and an amended locking plan is pure financial loss: nothing is damaged and nobody is injured. That loss falls outside public and employers' liability insurance. Some insurers offer separate key loss cover. Ask about it if you look after many sites, because this is one of the most frequent losses in the sector.
A visitor slips while we are mopping.
That is third-party personal injury and insured in principle. The assessment is about your precautions: warning signs, cordons, working outside the busiest times and using products that do not make things more slippery. Report the incident to your insurer immediately, even if the person says it is not serious; Article 7:941 of the Dutch Civil Code requires timely notification.
Our client accuses an employee of theft.
Theft is a deliberate act and is excluded from cover under Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code. The liability insurer therefore pays nothing here, not even if you are held liable as the employer. What does help is a watertight record of who was at the site and when, and a legal expenses arrangement for the dispute with your client.
Every situation is different. For these situations we have a separate page.
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