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
What goes wrong in secretarial services is rarely physical. A time limit for an objection expires, a notice of termination goes out a day late, a meeting document reaches the wrong recipient. Your client then suffers a financial loss without anything being damaged. That is precisely the type of loss that falls outside a liability insurance for businesses, which covers property damage and injury. For financial loss caused by a mistake in the service you need a professional indemnity insurance needed.
The second feature of this work is the information that passes through your hands: personnel files, minutes of decisions, contracts, medical appointments. In that you are usually a processor for your client and you work under a data processing agreement. An attachment sent to the wrong address is then a data breach with a duty to report, and the costs of reporting, investigation and informing those affected run separately from the question of liability.
Finass compares your range of tasks with the description of capacity on the policy. If, alongside diary and correspondence work, you also monitor time limits, do invoicing or minute decisions, that has to be stated literally; a policy that only says "administrative support" gives the insurer room to reject a claim about a missed time limit.
What does liability cover for secretarial services?
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.
Monitoring time limits determines the size of the claim
A missed deadline for an objection, a notice or a registration is irreversible: the right is gone and the loss is the full value that lay behind it. Set out in the confirmation of instructions whether monitoring time limits rests with you or with the client, and whether you only diarise matters or also send reminders. Without that definition it will be assumed when a claim comes that you were the monitor, and the insurer will judge your conduct on the strictest reading of the assignment.
Pure financial loss falls outside the AVB
The AVB pays for damage to property and to people. If nothing is left damaged after your mistake and the loss is purely financial, there is no property damage and therefore no cover under that section. That is not an exception but the design of the product. For secretarial services, professional indemnity insurance is therefore the main policy and the AVB the addition for the injured visitor and the knocked-over laptop.
Sending to the wrong recipient
An attachment containing personal data that ends up with a different addressee is the most common breach in this work, and more often the result of automatic address completion than of a hack. Work with delayed sending, separate distribution lists for sensitive documents and encrypted files for personnel records. Report the breach to your client at once: as a processor you do not decide yourself whether it has to be reported.
What you do not get paid for
Fines and penalty payments imposed on you or on your client are uninsurable. Redoing your own work and refunding or waiving your fee fall under the exclusion for putting your own work right. Damage caused deliberately is excluded under Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code. And damage to the client's equipment or files in your care is only covered if care, custody and control is separately insured.
What does your premium depend on?
Nature of the assignments. Typing and diary management weigh less than executive secretarial work with monitoring of time limits and contract management.
Annual turnover from secretarial services. Turnover is the rating basis and says something about the number of clients you serve at once.
Sum insured per claim and per year. Clients in the legal profession and in healthcare usually require a higher sum than SMEs do.
Type of data you process. Special categories of personal data, such as medical or sickness absence files, make underwriting stricter.
Retroactive and run-off periods. Professional indemnity insurance works on the basis of notification. The run-off period chosen after termination counts in the premium.
Excess per claim. A higher excess reduces the premium, but it means you carry the small errors over time limits yourself.
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.
I work from home for one client. Am I not simply covered by them?
No. Your client's liability insurance covers their own staff through Article 6:170 DCC, but you work as a self-employed professional for your own account. If you are held liable for a mistake, you face it alone. Only if you demonstrably work as a hired-in worker under supervision and direction can the client carry that risk. In that case record it in writing.
When do I have to report a mistake to my insurer?
As soon as you can reasonably suspect that a claim will follow, even if the client has not claimed anything yet. Article 7:941 DCC requires you to notify as soon as you are aware that the risk has materialised. If you wait until the letter holding you liable arrives, the insurer can argue that its interests have been prejudiced.
Does the policy also cover the cost of a data breach?
The liability section covers the loss a data subject recovers from you, but not your own costs of the incident: forensic investigation, informing those affected, restoring systems and legal assistance during an investigation by the regulator. Those costs sit on a cyber policy. If you work with third parties' files, that addition is worthwhile.
What if I am held liable only after the assignment has ended?
Professional indemnity almost always works on a notification basis: what matters is when the claim is notified, not when the mistake was made. If you close your business without run-off cover, a claim that comes in afterwards falls outside the cover. On termination, arrange a run-off period that matches your clients' retention periods.
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.
You will find our licence, KvK and Kifid details and our complaints procedure at the foot of every page.
