Duty to escalate · indemnities ·. Your personal position
Professional indemnity insurance (BAV) for a self-employed compliance officer
You work inside your client's organisation, but you carry your own liability. The allegation is rarely that you did something wrong, but usually that you failed to spot something.
- Several insurers compared objectively
- 9.5 customer rating for a new policy
- AFM licence 12016589
- Personal 072 - 509 24 56, weekdays 9–17
Deze pagina in het Nederlands: Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering voor een zelfstandige compliance officer.
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
As a self-employed compliance officer you are hired to see risks that others miss. That is precisely what you are held liable for: a client file never cleaned up, an alert in transaction monitoring not followed up, a product approval that passed you without review, or a report that in the regulator's view should have been made earlier. Your client then suffers financial detriment, without injury or damaged property. That pure financial loss falls under professional indemnity insurance. The general framework is set out on the hub page on the BAV.
Your most important defence is your escalation file. A compliance officer identifies and advises, but usually does not decide. If you reported a risk to the board or the supervisory board and nothing was done with it, the allegation shifts. If you do so orally, nothing of it remains. Record reports, advice and the response to them in writing and keep that record outside the client's systems, within the limits of your duty of confidentiality. Without a file, compliance with the duty of care in Article 7:401 of the Dutch Civil Code cannot be demonstrated.
Also look closely at your contract. Some clients indemnify the hired-in officer, while others stipulate wide liability or a penalty. Liability accepted by contract that goes beyond liability in law is excluded on the BAV. If you are formally appointed as a key function holder or as a data protection officer, have that role stated by name on your policy schedule. A different title soon means a different insured capacity.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare professional indemnity insurance (BAV).
What to look out for
Four points that weigh more heavily for a hired-in compliance officer than the hourly rate.
Being co-insured at the client is no certainty
Clients often say that hired-in staff fall under their policy. Ask for the wording and note two things: whether you fall within the class of insured persons as a self-employed person, and whether that cover continues after your engagement ends. Usually the client's cover applies only while the contract runs, whereas claims arrive precisely afterwards.
Your personal position towards the regulator
If you are assessed for suitability or integrity, a regulator can take measures affecting you personally. Such a measure is not an insured loss; insurance does not pay a sanction. What can fall within the cover are the defence costs in a civil claim by your client. Check whether those costs are paid within or on top of the sum insured.
Limited information, full responsibility
You work with systems, data and staff you do not control. Record in writing at the outset what scope you have, which systems you are given access to and which parts you expressly do not assess. Without that demarcation, it will be assumed after an incident that it fell within your engagement, even if you never had access.
What you bear yourself
Outside the cover remain: fines and penalty payments, imposed on you or on your client; intent and wilful recklessness under Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code, including deliberately failing to report what you knew; and liability as a director or policy maker, which belongs on directors' and officers' liability insurance. Work outside the described insured capacity, such as internal audit or IT implementation, also falls outside.
What does your premium depend on?
- Annual turnover from assignments: the usual measure for a self-employed professional without staff
- Type of clients: licensed institutions face heavier supervision than SMEs
- Roles you perform: advising, filling the compliance function or holding an appointed key function
- Sum insured: often driven by the requirement in your engagement agreement
- Length of engagements: long secondments give a different picture from short projects
- Retroactive and run-off periods: determines whether old and completed engagements remain covered
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | AVB | BAV |
|---|---|---|
| An alert from transaction monitoring that you left undone and that later calls for a remediation programme | No | Yes |
| Defence costs in a claim by your client where it later turns out you made no mistake | No | Yes |
| A risk you reported to the board in writing and about which nothing was done | No | Provided that |
| You damage a laptop lent to you at your client's premises | Provided that | No |
| You take on the set-up of an IT system at a client as well and something goes wrong there | No | No |
| A measure a regulator takes against you personally after an assessment | No | No |
An assurance that you fall under the client's policy usually ends as soon as your engagement does, while the claim arrives precisely afterwards.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
My client requires evidence of insurance. What must it state?
Usually the sum insured per claim and per year, the described insured capacity and the term. Make sure the insured capacity covers your actual role: if it says 'adviser' while you fill the compliance function, the evidence does not match the contract. Have the description amended before you sign; changing it afterwards has no retroactive effect.
Is a fine from DNB (the Dutch central bank) or the AFM (the Dutch financial markets authority) at my client covered?
No. Administrative fines are sanctions and are excluded on every liability policy, even where your client tries to recover them from you. What can be insurable are the remedial costs resulting from your mistake, for example redoing client due diligence. Check how such costs are described in the policy conditions.
What happens if I go back into employment?
The policy works on a claims made basis: what matters is when the claim is brought and notified, not when you did the work. If you cancel the insurance when you stop working for yourself, you are uninsured for claims about old engagements. Arrange run-off cover before you cancel and reckon with a period of several years; regulatory investigations run on for a long time.
I am also a data protection officer. Is that the same?
No. The DPO is a role with its own statutory basis and an independent position. Insurers treat it as a separate insured capacity, so have it expressly included. Where a data breach in your client's systems is concerned, the liability question is different from the cost of putting things right. The latter belongs on a cyber insurance held by the organisation itself.
Read more
Within Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekeringthe main page
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering compliance adviesbureau
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering legal counsel zzp
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering bedrijfsadviseur zzp
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering it consultant zzp
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering cybersecurity consultant zzp
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering ai consultant zzp
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