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Professional indemnity insurance (BAV) for a self-employed civil-law notary
A civil-law notary with his own protocol carries an official duty that goes further than an ordinary engagement. You also have to protect the party who does not realise what she is signing.
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Deze pagina in het Nederlands: Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering voor een zelfstandig notaris.
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.
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A premium indication, not personal advice. Prefer to talk it through? Call 072 - 509 24 56.
In brief
For a civil-law notary, professional indemnity insurance is not a choice: the professional and conduct rules of the KNB (the Dutch royal notarial association) prescribe cover, and the regulator checks it. So the real question is not whether you are insured, but whether the sum insured, the retroactive date and the description of your practice match what you actually do. How such a policy is built up in general is explained on the hub page on the BAV.
What sets you apart from other advisers is the official duty of care. Article 43 of the Dutch Notaries Act requires you to point out to the parties the consequences of the deed and, where necessary, to question further the party in the weaker position: the parent who co-signs for a child's mortgage, the partner who gives up a claim, the donor with a limited overview. Article 21 of the Notaries Act requires you to provide your services, but also compels you to refuse to act if you suspect that the deed serves an improper purpose. A claim is almost always about whether you held that conversation and whether it appears from your file.
The second source of claims is the search: a Land Registry check carried out too early so that an attachment registered later is missed, an outstanding mortgage registration that has not been discharged, an easement or a covenant running with the land that does not appear in the deed, a wrong division in an estate. The loss is then pure financial loss: your client loses a right or takes on a burden he did not know about. Defence costs often make up a larger part of the bill than the compensation itself.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare professional indemnity insurance (BAV).
What a notarial practice is judged on
Four subjects that weigh more heavily in an independent practice than the premium.
Client money falls outside the liability cover
The client account of Article 25 of the Dutch Notaries Act (Wna) keeps clients' money separate, but a BAV does not pay for misappropriation or other deliberate acts. Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code excludes loss caused by intent and policies extend that to fraud within your own organisation. A shortfall on the client account is therefore not an insured loss but a matter of internal control and supervision.
Disciplinary sanctions and fines are not insurable
A reprimand or suspension by the notarial disciplinary chamber is a measure against you personally and not compensation. Administrative fines for shortcomings in client due diligence or in reporting unusual transactions under the Wwft (the Dutch anti-money laundering act) are also excluded. Some policies do pay the cost of assistance in disciplinary proceedings; check whether that section is included and up to what limit.
Secondary activities fall outside your professional capacity
If you act as an executor, administrator, arbitrator, mediator or as a director of a client's foundation, that is a different role from the notarial office. If that role is not on the policy schedule, you are carrying out work outside your insured professional capacity. Tax advice alongside the deed is not automatically covered either; have it included if you give it regularly.
Leaving office and transferring the protocol
If you give up office or transfer your protocol, claims about old deeds remain possible. Because the policy works on a claims-madebasis, what matters is whether cover is in force at the moment of the claim. Buy run-off cover before you cancel and record in the transfer arrangements who carries the past; arranging it afterwards is no longer possible.
What does your premium depend on?
- Turnover of the practice: the usual basis for calculation
- Composition of the practice: property, family or company practice
- Number of deeds executed: volume counts alongside turnover
- Size of the transactions: the interests at stake determine the loss potential
- Quality and control procedures: four-eyes checks and the timing of searches
- Retroactive date: from what moment earlier deeds are included
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What falls under which policy
| Situation | AVB | BAV |
|---|---|---|
| An attachment registered after your Land Registry search that you no longer saw at execution | No | Yes |
| An easement not carried over into the transfer deed, so that the buyer loses a right of way | No | Yes |
| A will that turns out to be invalid because of a formal defect and the estate is divided differently | No | Yes |
| A client trips over a loose cable in your waiting area and breaks a wrist | Yes | No |
| The cost of defending yourself against an heir who holds you liable | No | Yes |
| Re-executing at your own expense a deed in which a clause was missing | No | No |
The AVB covers injury and damage to property, the BAV the financial detriment arising from the exercise of your office. A notarial practice generally needs both.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
What does the duty of care in Article 43 of the Notaries Act mean?
You must not only read the deed to the parties, but explain the consequences in plain language and check that they understand them. Where a party is in a dependent or inexperienced position, that duty goes further. Record what you discussed, which questions were asked and which alternatives came up. That record is your most important defence in a later claim.
Am I liable if a client gave me incorrect information?
Not as a matter of course, but you may not rely blindly on everything supplied to you. You are expected to consult the public registers and to ask further questions where there are inconsistencies or unusual structures. If it turns out afterwards that there were signs you should have noticed, liability can arise under Article 6:162 of the Dutch Civil Code alongside the contractual duty of care.
What about false payment instructions on a transfer?
Fraud in which an email containing an account number is intercepted or forged is not a professional error in the classic sense. For the cost of investigation and recovery and the liability arising from it there is cyber insurance. Also work with a fixed procedure for verifying account numbers, because insurers assess that procedure in underwriting.
What is the difference from the cover of a trainee civil-law notary?
As a notary with your own protocol you are the policyholder and you determine the conditions, the sum insured and the retroactive date. A trainee civil-law notary is a co-insured on the firm's policy and does not have that say. For that situation, see professional indemnity for a junior civil-law notary (kandidaat-notaris).
Read more
Within Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekeringthe main page
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering kandidaat notaris
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering notariskantoor
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering deurwaarderskantoor
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering verzekeringsadviseur zzp
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering makelaar zzp
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering gerechtsdeurwaarder zzp
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