Advertising budget · account access · work on site
Liability insurance for a self-employed SEA specialist
You manage someone else's advertising budget. If something goes wrong there, the loss consists of money: and that is exactly where public and employers' liability insurance stops.
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Deze pagina in het Nederlands: Aansprakelijkheidsverzekering voor een zelfstandige SEA-specialist.
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
Public and employers' liability insurance (AVB) pays for injury and property damage that you cause to someone else. For an SEA specialist that is a narrow category: you sit behind a screen. Even so it happens — a cup knocked over onto the docking station in a client's meeting room, a monitor you lift off its stand during a workshop and drop. How the cover works in general is set out on hub page on public and employers' liability.
The risk that really characterises your work falls outside. A campaign that runs for days on the wrong keywords, a bidding strategy that spends the weekend budget in a few hours, a wrongly linked conversion goal that means months of optimising on the wrong signals: the client then claims money back, while no property is damaged and nobody was injured. That is pure financial loss and belongs on a professional indemnity insurance.
Also watch what is placed in your hands. You work with administrator access to advertising, analytics and tag management accounts. If such an account falls into the wrong hands through a hijacked login of yours, that is an incident for cyber insurance for self-employed professionals and not for the AVB. And the laptop or phone you have on loan from the client falls under the care, custody and control exclusion.
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 cause more argument in advertising work than the level of the sum insured.
Burnt budget is not property damage
A claim about wasted media budget or lost turnover is a claim for money. The AVB has no cover for that. That insurance is built around damaged property and injured people. Without professional indemnity cover you pay both the claim and the defence yourself. Deliberate or recklessly deliberate conduct remains uninsured there too; see Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code.
Equipment you have from the client in your keeping
If you are lent a laptop, dongle or second screen, that item is in your in your care. If it breaks, the standard AVB gives no cover. Ask for a care, custody and control clause or agree in writing with the client that the risk stays with him. Your own equipment is not a liability matter in any event but belongs on business contents and goods insurance.
Working within the client's team
If you work as a regular part of the internal team, the question arises who bears the cost of your mistakes. For a subordinate Article 6:170 of the Dutch Civil Code applies, for a self-employed person engaged Article 6:171 DCC. Many contracts for hire push the risk onto you through an indemnity clause; liability you bear only under such a clause and not under the law is excluded on the AVB.
What you tell the insurer when you apply
If you also advertise for clients outside the Netherlands, or work from shared office space, report it. Under Article 7:928 of the Dutch Civil Code you must inform the insurer fully; Article 7:930 DCC determines what happens to the payment if you have not. The area of cover is a real point in digital services: clients in the United States or Canada are excluded on many policies.
What does your premium depend on?
- Annual turnover: the usual measure for a sole trader without staff
- Sectors you advertise for: financial services, medical and gambling weigh more heavily
- Work on site or entirely remote: determines how often you are physically at a client
- Sum insured and excess: per claim and per insurance year
- Area of cover: clients outside Europe change the risk
- Combination with professional indemnity: a package is usually cheaper than two separate policies
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | AVB | BAV |
|---|---|---|
| During a training session you pull the projection screen off the wall and it collapses | Yes | No |
| A participant trips over the bag you put in the aisle and breaks a wrist | Yes | No |
| You link the wrong product feed and for two weeks ads run for sold-out items | No | Yes |
| A mistake in the copy promises free delivery that the webshop then has to honour | No | Yes |
| Your client imposes a contractual penalty because you missed the date of a product launch | No | No |
| After a cycling accident you cannot carry out assignments for six weeks | No | No |
Your professional mistakes cost money without anything being broken, and that is precisely why the right-hand column exists.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
My client claims the budget back after a wrong campaign setting. Does the AVB pay?
No. Advertising budget spent and turnover lost are money, not damaged property and not injury. The AVB is made for those two categories. A claim about a settings error belongs on professional indemnity insurance, which pays the compensation and also the defence against an unjustified claim.
Is a hacked Google Ads account covered?
Not on the AVB. Unauthorised access, misused budget and the restoration of accounts and settings fall under cyber insurance. That also covers investigation and notification costs where personal data is involved. Do not wait in an incident: Article 7:941 of the Dutch Civil Code requires notification as soon as you reasonably know that there is a loss.
I have damaged a monitor borrowed from my client.
That is a classic care, custody and control case. Property in your keeping that you do not own is excluded on the standard AVB. Some insurers offer limited care, custody and control cover as an extension. Arrange it in advance, because afterwards you can only fall back on arrangements with the client.
Do I need an AVB as a self-employed professional without staff?
Often yes, because clients and hiring agencies ask for it in their terms. Besides, Article 6:162 of the Dutch Civil Code continues to apply to damage you cause at a client. An overview of what a self-employed professional needs is set out on the page about liability as a self-employed professional (zzp'er).
Read more
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