Limits of competence · equipment management · retail
Professional indemnity – Skin therapy practice
In a practice with several practitioners, harm rarely arises from incompetence. It arises because someone carries out a treatment that falls just outside their competence or training.
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Deze pagina in het Nederlands: Beroepsaansprakelijkheid – Huidtherapie Praktijk.
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
A skin therapy practice is liable for its staff under Article 6:170 of the Dutch Civil Code, and towards the client often also for the self-employed professionals working under its name (Article 6:171 of the Dutch Civil Code). The sensitive point is the limit of competence. A beauty therapist, a member of staff in training and a skin therapist registered under the Wet BIG are not allowed to do the same things. If a laser treatment is carried out by someone not trained for it, an insurer will point straight to the training and competence clause in the policy when a claim comes in.
The Wkkgz (the Dutch healthcare quality, complaints and disputes act) adds organisational duties on top: a complaints officer, membership of a disputes body and a duty to verify when taking on practitioners. That duty has an insurance side. If you cannot show that you checked a new member of staff's performance and training, your position is weak in a claim about a treatment that member of staff should not have carried out.
Alongside the treatments themselves, the practice runs ordinary business risks: a client who trips in the waiting area, water damage in the rented premises, a mirror that falls. That is not a professional error and belongs on the AVB. The dividing line between the two policies is explained on the hub page.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare professional indemnity insurance (BAV).
Points that affect a practice
Four subjects that go wrong in a practice policy more often than in a sole practitioner's policy.
Training and competence for each practitioner
Virtually every policy contains a clause that treatments are only covered if they are carried out by someone with the required training and registration. Keep a file for each member of staff with certificates, equipment qualifications and continuing training. Without that file the exclusion is easy to invoke and you carry the claim yourself.
Managing the equipment
Several lasers, IPL systems and radiofrequency devices call for a demonstrable maintenance and safety regime. If injury arises from a technical defect rather than from the treatment, that is a claim for a defective movable object under Article 6:173 of the Dutch Civil Code and it runs through the AVB. For the building itself, Article 6:174 of the Dutch Civil Code applies.
Eye safety for your own team
Practitioners who work with light and laser energy every day are themselves at risk of eye and skin damage. Under Article 7:658 of the Dutch Civil Code you must show that you provided protective equipment, enforced its use and gave instruction. Paragraph 4 of that article extends that duty of care to interns and hired-in workers.
Three exclusions to check in advance
The following stay outside the cover as standard: damage caused by products you sell without a separate product liability section, fines from the Inspectorate or the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch data protection authority), and loss caused by intent or wilful recklessness under Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code. Guarantees about the end result in quotations or advertising also fall outside the cover. That is liability accepted by contract.
What does your premium depend on?
- Practice turnover and number of sites: several locations mean more supervisory risk
- Composition of the team: the balance between skin therapists, specialists and self-employed professionals
- Type and number of devices: energy-based devices weigh the most heavily
- Share of retail in turnover: determines whether product liability is needed
- Sum insured and excess: per claim and per insurance year
- Complaints and claims history: including the way complaints are handled
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | AVB | BAV |
|---|---|---|
| A skin therapist on the payroll takes a peel too deep and scarring develops | No | Yes |
| The radiofrequency device has a technical defect and a client is injured | Yes | No |
| A client has an allergic reaction to a skincare product you sell in the practice | Provided that | No |
| A practitioner suffers eye damage because protective goggles were not provided | Provided that | No |
| A member of staff without laser training carries out a hair removal treatment and the client suffers burns | No | No |
| A client demands the cost of the course back because the end result named in the quotation has not materialised | No | No |
Where injury is caused by a device, the question is about the defect in the equipment; where it is caused by the treatment, it is about the practitioner's competence.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
Our beauty therapist carries out light treatments. Is that insured?
Only if it was declared in the application and falls within the stated activities. Insurers distinguish between skin therapists registered under the Wet BIG and other practitioners, with different permitted procedures. Have it set out in writing which treatments may be carried out by which group of staff, and hold the practice to it; departing from it costs you the cover in precisely that case.
A self-employed professional rents a treatment room from us. Who is liable?
The client often claims against the practice, because that is where the appointment was made. Set out in the rental agreement that the self-employed professional maintains their own professional indemnity insurance and ask for proof of it each year. Without that proof you carry the risk of treatments over which you have no professional supervision.
What do we do about a claim over scarring after a peel?
Report the claim to the insurer at once and admit no liability, not even as a gesture of goodwill. Article 7:941 of the Dutch Civil Code requires prompt notification. A promise made on your own initiative can affect your cover. Gather the intake form, the consent form, the concentration used and the aftercare instructions before you speak to the client.
What if the client records are hacked?
That is not a professional error. The cost of forensic investigation, recovery and notification, and liability towards the data subjects, belong on a cyber insurance. Bear in mind that photographs of skin are special category personal data and that the duty of confidentiality in Article 7:457 of the Dutch Civil Code also applies to images in your treatment software.
Read more
Within Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekeringthe main page
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering fysiotherapiepraktijk
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering huisartsenpraktijk
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering kraamzorg
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering osteopathie praktijk
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering huidtherapeut zzp
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering psychotherapie praktijk
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