Paying for insurance

[gingerjedi]

I need to get professional indemnity and Public liability insurance ASAP in order to get my contract raised the trouble is there is no money in my business account as I haven’t used it yet, how can I claim this as a business expense if I have to pay for it personally from my current account? Or is it even a claimable expense?

Also where can I find the cheapest quote? I begrudge paying the same as a developer/programmer as doing support work has nowhere near as much financial risk IMO.

[Maxamus]

pay out of your own pocket and then take the money from the business account as an expense.

[~Craig~]

or pay via monthly DD from your personal or business account (transfer some over)

[Ivor1]

I used 'Hiscox', pay monthly £22.84 via DD, no interest charge for monthly payment either come straight out of business account.
Time it right and you wont have to pay for 7 weeks then on the 8th week you pay two months fees in one go and then its monthly after that. Or just pay some cash into the business account and make it a directors loan.

[gingerjedi]

Thanks for the advice guys, just been looking on the hiscox site and got a quote of £278 for PI & PL which isn't bad

I filled out an enquiry form on the PCG site asking what the 'preferential' rate would be with PCG membership to weigh up the pro's of being a member, I will post on here and let you know what they quote when they reply.

I rang my accountant and asked about payments and they said just pay up and claim as an expense so I might bite the bullet and pay the lot for ease of paperwork.

[malvolio]

I filled out an enquiry form on the PCG site asking what the 'preferential' rate would be with PCG membership to weigh up the pro's of being a member, I will post on here and let you know what they quote when they reply.

£210 for the usual level of cover for the average freelance. Includes PI,PLI and ELI. Equipment insurance extra, should you want it. Add of course the £250 for joining PCG (which brings another £1000's worth of extra benefits) which you should be doing anyway... (hint, hint)

[rawly]

£210 for the usual level of cover for the average freelance. Includes PI,PLI and ELI. Equipment insurance extra, should you want it. Add of course the £250 for joining PCG (which brings another £1000's worth of extra benefits) which you should be doing anyway... (hint, hint)

Doesn't the £120 package give the same IR35 benefits a their PLUS package mentioned above? The extra price for the plus benefits didn't seem that useful to me, or have I read it wrong. It only seemed to add PAYE audit and Jury service cover.

[gingerjedi]

£210 for the usual level of cover for the average freelance. Includes PI,PLI and ELI. Equipment insurance extra, should you want it. Add of course the £250 for joining PCG (which brings another £1000's worth of extra benefits) which you should be doing anyway... (hint, hint)

It only offers PI & PL at preferential rates on top of the membership linky as far as I can see? Its worth it for IR35 cover but do they charge on top of that for a contract review?

[malvolio]

Doesn't the £120 package give the same IR35 benefits a their PLUS package mentioned above? The extra price for the plus benefits didn't seem that useful to me, or have I read it wrong. It only seemed to add PAYE audit and Jury service cover.

You read it wrong. PCG membership is £120, PCGPlus is £210 and you get a list of extras thrown in including full tax investigation insurance and jury service cover. PI/PLI/ELI is not a bundled product, but you get a discount from the insurers. Full details start at http://www.pcg.org.uk/cms/index.php?...646&Itemid=302 and the extras for PCGPlus at http://www.pcg.org.uk/cms/index.php?...647&Itemid=303 - the key bit being the addition of PAYE Audit cover, standard only covers IR35 investigations.

Anyway PCG is not an insurance company. You should join anyway! The more members, the louder their voice. And if you don't think that's important, go read the budget again and imagine what might have been...

[malvolio]

It only offers PI & PL at preferential rates on top of the membership linky as far as I can see? Its worth it for IR35 cover but do they charge on top of that for a contract review?

Like I just said, PCG is not an insurance company. They do get big discounts on a lot of things, including contract reviews.

Put it this way - the package benefits of PCG Plus and the discounts you can get would cost around £2.5k on the open market if sourced separately.