Professional indemnity insurance (BAV) for a speech therapist
As a self-employed professional you often work in someone else's practice, school or institution. The patient has then contracted with that organisation, but the mistake remains yours.
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In brief
The picture for a self-employed speech and language therapist differs from that of a practice owner on one point: you usually work under someone else's roof. Standing in during maternity leave, a fixed half-day at a special school, hours in a nursing home or a rehabilitation centre. That raises three questions. Who keeps the file and in which system? Who informs the referrer? And who carries the loss if something goes wrong? Do not rely on the client's policy here: it rarely covers the self-employed professional it hires, and it often specifically requires you to hold your own insurance.
In substance your greatest exposure lies in swallowing problems and in not referring on complaints that call for medical investigation. This profession also has a less well-known corner: guidance for professional speakers and singers. Voice advice that has a teacher, actor or singer using their voice again too soon, or on the contrary unnecessarily long voice rest, can lead to loss of income. That is pure financial loss, whereas choking is a matter of injury. Your policy must be able to carry both. So ask expressly for the healthcare variant.
The standard for your conduct is that of the good care provider in Article 7:453 of the Dutch Civil Code. Speech and language therapist is an Article 34 profession under the Wet BIG, with a protected qualification title but without a disciplinary tribunal of its own. If you work in a practice with staff and several practitioners, further questions about the class of insured persons arise. Those are set out under the speech and language therapy practice.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare professional indemnity insurance (BAV).
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We cancel your old policy and align the start date, so you are never a day without cover.
Help with claims
We report the claim and monitor how it is handled. In urgent cases you can reach us on the emergency line.
What to look out for
Four points that determine, for a self-employed speech and language therapist, where a claim eventually lands.
Read the indemnity clause
Locum and hire agreements often contain a provision in which you indemnify the client against all loss, sometimes without limit and without any threshold of fault on your part. Liability you carry solely on the basis of such a clause and that would not exist without it is excluded on virtually every policy. Negotiate it back to what your insurance actually covers.
Your file in someone else's system
If you record in the practice's or institution's file system, agree that you keep access when you leave or receive an export. Without your own notes you are empty-handed when a claim arrives years later. The obligation to keep records for twenty years under Article 7:454 of the Dutch Civil Code does not disappear because someone else manages the software.
Treating remotely
Teletherapy is now common practice, but you see less: oral motor function, breath support and a child's reactions are harder to assess through a screen. Report that you work remotely and record when you consider a face-to-face consultation necessary. Insurers assess remote support separately, partly because the scope for observation is more limited.
What falls outside the policy
Excluded are, among others: liability accepted under contract that goes beyond the law; repayment of your own fee or redoing your treatments; fines and penalty payments; and intent and wilful recklessness (Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code). Damage to equipment you use belonging to a client does not belong here either.
What does your premium depend on?
- Annual turnover: the usual basis for a sole practice
- Patient groups: dysphagia, neurology and infants weigh more heavily than school-age children
- Workplaces: locum work, institutions and home visits alongside your own treatment room
- Share of remote treatment: assessed separately because of the limited scope for observation
- Sum insured per claim: set by injury claims, not by your hourly rate
- Retroactive and run-off periods: determines whether old treatments and late complaints are included
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | AVB | BAV |
|---|---|---|
| A teacher is off work for longer because your voice advice put him back in front of the class too soon | No | Yes |
| You do not inform the referrer, so a child goes without follow-up treatment for six months | No | Yes |
| A resident of the nursing home where you work a half-day chokes after your swallowing advice | No | Provided that |
| You knock the monitor off the desk with your equipment case at the practice where you are standing in | Yes | No |
| A parent trips over your bag in the corridor of the school where you treat | Yes | No |
| The hours you spend unpaid redoing a course of treatment that was built up wrongly | No | No |
Your own time and remedial work do not count. What matters is the detriment the patient suffers.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
I stand in at a practice. Am I covered through their policy?
Rarely. A practice policy covers the business and its staff. A hired-in self-employed professional usually falls outside it and is in fact required by the agreement to show their own insurance. Ask for the practice's policy schedule if they say you are included, and have it confirmed in writing that you are treated as an insured person. If that is missing, take out a policy yourself.
A parent accuses me of starting their child's treatment too late.
The assessment is whether, at intake and during the course of treatment, you acted as a fellow professional would: did you screen, refer on where that was indicated and evaluate the effect of the treatment? Report the claim to your insurer and supply your file. Admit no liability and make no promise of compensation before the insurer has determined its position.
I am closing my practice in a year. What do I arrange now?
Run-off cover, and before you cancel. Most policies are claims-made: what counts is when the claim is notified, not when you treated. Without run-off cover you are uninsured for complaints that come in after your last policy year, and with children and late consequential harm those can still follow for years.
Do I also need public and employers' liability insurance (AVB)?
Usually yes. If a patient trips in your treatment room or you damage equipment at a school, it is a matter of injury or damage to property and not a professional error. That belongs on a public and employers' liability insurance. Some insurers offer both covers in one policy. If so, do compare the exclusions in each section.
Every situation is different. For these situations we have a separate page.
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