Insurance package for self-employed professionals in IT
For a self-employed professional in IT, the risk is not determined by your tools but by your assignment: a migration that goes wrong, a release that takes down the production environment, or client data that disappears while you are working.
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 package consists of parts with different triggers. The professional indemnity cover is the core and covers pure financial loss caused by a mistake in design, build, implementation or management. It works on a claims-made basis, so the date of notification counts and not the date of the mistake; prior and run-off cover are therefore decisive whenever you switch. See the explanation of prior acts and run-off cover before you compare quotations.
Alongside it are two other parts. Public and employers' liability cover for the physical side: you visit clients, you connect equipment, you lift a server cabinet. And cyber cover for the data and the notification duty, on which there is more on the page about cyber insurance for self-employed professionals. Finally your own equipment, which is insured as business contents and does not run on a private home contents policy.
Before the policy exists, the contract counts. Insurers cover liability in law. A penalty clause in an SLA, a credit for your hours or an indemnity that goes further than the law falls outside it. So work with industry terms in which your liability is limited and refer to them by the time the agreement is concluded at the latest. A reference on the final invoice is too late and does not make the limitation apply.
What does the insurance package for self-employed IT professionals 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.
Your deliverable is the risk, not your laptop
The losses that recur in this work are financial losses without anything being broken: a permission setting that is too wide, a migration in which a table did not come across, an interface that writes invoices twice, a release that goes to production on a Friday afternoon. The client suffers a loss, your equipment is undamaged. Only professional indemnity cover picks that up, and it looks at the date of notification.
SLA penalties are not compensation for loss
A penalty clause, a service credit or a discount on your invoice for a missed response time is a contractual sanction and not an obligation in law to compensate loss. Insurers exclude that. The same applies to a guarantee you give yourself about availability or performance. Negotiate the level and the scope of such clauses before you sign, because insuring them afterwards is no longer an option.
You work in the client's environment
Administrative access to production means you have someone else's property and data in your care. For the equipment, the care, custody and control exclusion comes into play. For the data, it is cyber liability and the data processing agreement. Agree in advance who reports a data breach and within what period you inform the client. That period is often contractually shorter than the 72 hours the GDPR gives you towards the regulator.
What the package does not solve
Outside the cover remain redoing or repairing your own work and refunding your hours, fines and contractual sanctions, claims you already knew about when the policy was taken out, and intent or deliberate recklessness under Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code. If you resell third-party hardware or software, product liability under Article 6:185 of the Dutch Civil Code lies in principle with the manufacturer, not with you.
What does your premium depend on?
Type of IT work. Advice, bespoke development, implementation, management and hosting each have their own claims profile.
Annual turnover. Turnover is the basis for the professional indemnity cover and is adjusted afterwards.
Sum insured per claim and per year. Two separate choices; clients usually mention only the first in their terms.
Retroactive and run-off periods. How far back the cover reaches and how long it continues after termination is a separate item in the premium.
Territory of your clients. Assignments with a link to the United States and Canada are almost always excluded.
Cyber limit and your own equipment. The cyber limit chosen and the value of your laptops, test equipment and lab set-up all count.
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.
Do I need public and employers' liability cover as well as professional indemnity cover?
If you visit clients, yes. As soon as you connect equipment, run cables or move a server cabinet, injury or property damage can occur, and that falls outside professional indemnity cover. If you work solely remotely from your own workspace the risk is smaller, but clients often still require the cover contractually.
My client demands unlimited liability. Can I insure that?
No. Every policy has a sum per claim and a maximum per year; above that you carry the risk yourself, and in a sole trader business that runs through to your private assets. Accepting unlimited liability is therefore a choice you back with your own possessions. Negotiate a limitation or let the assignment go.
I work through a secondment agency. Who is liable then?
Towards the end client, the principal can be held liable for the mistakes of those it engages, under Articles 6:170 and 6:171 of the Dutch Civil Code. That does not mean you are in the clear: agency and principal almost always include a recourse or indemnity clause in the agreement. Your own policy therefore remains necessary, even on a long secondment.
Is loss of data at the client covered?
In part. The costs of restoring or reconstructing files usually run through the cyber cover. If the client also suffers financial loss because it could not invoice or missed a deadline, that is a claim against your professional indemnity cover. The value of data that is permanently gone and cannot be reconstructed is not an insurable item.
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.
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