Liability
- AVB: injury and property damage, often 2.5 million per claim
- BAV: financial loss from a professional error, premium based on turnover
- BTA: private assets of directors, internal and external claims
Types of business liability insurance
General, professional, directors' and cyber liability each cover a different kind of loss; the boundaries between them determine which policy pays when a claim comes in.
- several insurers compared objectively
- 9.5 customer rating for a new policy
- AFM licence 12016589
- Personal 072 - 509 24 56, weekdays 9–17
This page in another language: Nederlands
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.
Which details do we ask for?
Personal quote request. A no-obligation request: nothing is taken out automatically. After sending you receive a reference number and a confirmation by e-mail.
- First and last name (required)
- Date of birth (required)
- E-mail address (required)
- Phone number (required)
- Postcode (required)
- House number (required)
- Suffix
- Address check
- Would you like to include any other insurance? (required)
Additional questions follow per chosen insurance.
- Household composition (required)
- Occupation or activities (required)
- Preferred start date
- Already insured?
- Is there anything we should know? (required)
- Comments
- Have you, or anyone else with an interest in this insurance, been in contact with the police or judicial authorities in the past 8 years? (required)
- Has an insurance policy ever been cancelled, refused or terminated due to fraud, or are you registered in the incident register? (required)
- I agree to the privacy statement, declare that the information is correct and complete to the best of my knowledge, and understand that this quote request does not yet provide insurance cover. (required)
Additional questions follow per chosen insurance.
- Independent advice
- Several insurers
- Switching arranged
- Help with claims
In brief
Business liability is not a single insurance policy but a family of four policies, each covering its own type of loss. Business liability insurance (AVB) covers injury and property damage that your company, your staff or your product causes to others, including employer's liability under Article 7:658 of the Dutch Civil Code (BW) and product liability. A sum insured of 2,500,000 euros per claim is the usual minimum for SMEs; anything above that, the company pays itself.
Professional indemnity insurance (BAV) covers pure financial loss caused by an error in advice, design or calculation: nothing breaks, nobody is injured, but the client suffers a financial loss. The premium follows turnover and profession, and not every profession can be insured with every insurer. Directors' and officers' liability insurance (BTA) protects the private assets of directors and supervisory board members against claims about their management, internally from their own legal entity and externally from a liquidator, the tax authorities or creditors. Cyber insurance covers your own recovery costs and liability after a hack or data breach.
Unlike our page for the self-employed (zzp), where the choice between AVB and BAV for one person is the issue, for a company with staff or a private limited company (bv) it is about how the policies fit together: who is insured, which policy covers the gap between the others, and whether the exclusions for intent, fines and penalty payments line up. We put the policies side by side and make sure the transitions are right.
Independent, personal, sorted quickly
We compare your personal liability insurance (AVP) across dozens of insurers, explain where the real differences lie, and arrange the switch from start to finish — without you having to chase it yourself.
Personal liability insurance (AVP)Photo coming soon
ComparePhoto coming soon
Get coveredPhoto coming soon
What do the types of business liability insurance cover?
Which types you need depends on whether your losses are mainly physical or financial, whether you have directors who can be held personally liable and how dependent you are on IT.
Assets and continuity
Where liability touches your own business assets: property in your care, data and downtime after an incident.
- Care, custody and control as a sublimit on the AVB, e.g. 25,000 euros
- Cyber: forensic investigation, recovery and claims from customers
- Insure business interruption after a covered incident separately
Staff
Employer's liability belongs to the AVB (7:658 BW), but good employership and road traffic call for additional cover.
- Workplace accidents involving your own staff
- Include agency staff and freelancers (zzp) as insureds
- Road traffic damage to staff via WEGAS or SVI (7:611 BW)
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.
What does your premium depend on?
- Hands-on, advisory or both. Determines whether you need an AVB, a BAV or both. That is the first question.
- Legal form and board. With a private limited company, foundation or association, directors' and officers' liability is added.
- Personal data and reliance on IT. How much data you process and how long you can manage without your systems.
- Staff and hired-in labour. Your own staff, agency workers and self-employed professionals working under your direction.
- Sum insured per section. The amount per claim and per insurance year, to be chosen separately for each form of cover.
- Extensions chosen. Care, custody and control, employers' liability on the road, environmental damage and work after completion.
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
How we arrange it
- You request a quoteWe take stock of your situation, your risk and your 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.
Why arrange it through Finass Verzekert?
We look at the terms as well as the premium, and stay your point of contact when there is a claim.
Independent
We are not tied to one insurer and compare on the basis of an objective analysis of several companies.
One fixed adviser
You call or email someone who knows your file. No menu options, no changing call centres.
Switching without hassle
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.
9.5New policy
9.8Claims handling
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.
Where things go wrong in practice
The most important boundaries between the types of liability insurance, with the situations in which they become visible.
Property damage or financial loss
A removal firm drops a television: property damage, the AVB pays. An accountant delivers annual accounts with a calculation error that results in a fine and additional tax assessment for the client: pure financial loss, only the BAV pays. An installer who sizes a heat pump incorrectly is on the boundary: the higher energy costs are financial loss, a burst pipe caused by the error is property damage. Companies doing both practical and advisory work therefore need both policies, preferably with an agreement on who handles a mixed claim. The AVB sometimes has a section for financial loss linked to property damage, but rarely for a standalone advisory error.
Property in your care and your own work
The AVB excludes damage to property you have in your care in order to work on it, transport it or store it. A mechanic who damages the machine he is working on, or a cleaning company that discolours a client's floor, falls outside cover as standard. Care, custody and control cover (opzichtdekking) can insure this, but with a sublimit much lower than the sum insured; in policies for the self-employed we see, for example, 25,000 euros per event and 50,000 euros per year. Repairing your own defective work is never covered; in construction, CAR insurance (contractors' all risks) exists for that. If you work with valuable items belonging to customers, such as cars, machinery or art, the level of the care, custody and control limit deserves attention.
Directors personally
An AVB and a BAV cover the liability of the legal entity. If a director is held personally liable, those policies do not help. That happens more often than you might think: a liquidator who alleges manifestly improper management after bankruptcy (Article 2:248 BW), the Tax Administration finding that inability to pay was not reported within two weeks (Article 36 of the Invorderingswet, the Tax Collection Act), or an association whose members accuse the board of making an advance payment to a contractor that went bankrupt. The BTA covers defence costs and damages, even where a claim proves unfounded, and usually includes retroactive cover for errors from previous years. For smaller private limited companies and foundations, the entire management is often insured under one policy.
Cyber between the other policies
A ransomware attack shuts down your systems, customer data leaks and you must report the data breach to the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch Data Protection Authority) within 72 hours. The AVB does not cover a data breach, because there is no property damage or injury. The BAV sometimes covers liability towards customers, but not your own costs of forensic investigation, system recovery, notifications to those affected and loss of turnover during downtime. Cyber insurance covers both sides and usually offers an incident response team that starts within hours. Compare the data breach provisions of the BAV and the cyber policy and make one policy primary, so that two insurers do not point at each other in the event of an incident.
Frequently asked questions
Questions business owners ask us about the types of liability insurance.
What liability insurance does my business need as a minimum?
Every business that works off its own premises, receives customers or supplies products needs an AVB; that is also what clients and landlords almost always ask for. If you advise, design or calculate for clients, the BAV is added. If you have a private limited company, foundation or association with several directors, the BTA is the third layer. Cyber insurance makes sense as soon as you manage customer data or run a webshop.
Is liability insurance compulsory for businesses?
By law only for certain professions: lawyers, civil-law notaries, accountants, financial advisers with an AFM licence and administrators must have professional indemnity insurance. There is no legal obligation for the AVB and the BTA. In practice, however, clients' purchasing conditions, trade associations and landlords do require proof of insurance with a minimum amount, often 1,250,000 or 2,500,000 euros per claim. Without a policy, the company bears every claim itself.
Can I take out all liability insurance with one insurer?
That is possible through a business package, and the advantage is that the exclusions are aligned and there is no dispute between insurers in the event of a claim. Even so, the best BAV or cyber policy for your profession is not always available from the same insurer as the most competitive AVB; some insurers do not accept certain professions or apply turnover limits. We compare by type and make sure the policies fit together without gaps.
What does business liability insurance cost?
That differs by type and sector. As an indication, an AVB for an office-based sole trader often costs between 10 and 25 euros a month; for a contractor with staff it rises to hundreds or thousands of euros a year. A BAV for an adviser is often between 30 and 100 euros a month, depending on turnover and profession. A BTA for a small private limited company generally starts at a few hundred euros a year. Sum insured, excess and claims history determine the outcome.
Every situation is different. For these situations we have a separate page.
- Compare personal liability insurance (AVP)The main page
- Liability for call centresCustomer data, distance selling, recordings
- Liability insurance for self-employed professionalsClient requirements, private assets, sum insured
- Liability for occupational health servicesMedical data, advice, the Gatekeeper Act
- Misconceptions about liability insuranceCare, custody and control, staff, your own losses
- Liability for research agenciesRespondent data, methodology, publication
- Liability insurance for secretarial servicesTime limits, correspondence, confidentiality
- Liability for debt collection agenciesWki, unjustified claim, data
- Liability in flange assembly: care, custody and control and consequential lossTorque, gasket, records
Read more
Ready to compare?
Request a quote without obligation. We will look at which insurer best matches your activities and your risk.
Prefer to call? 072 - 509 24 56, weekdays 09:00–17:00.
Claim on the road? Emergency line 06 - 55 20 40 72.
About our service
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.
This page was compiled by Finass Verzekert (LinkedIn). Last updated on .
The information on this page is general in nature and is not personal advice.