personal liability insurance

[aslong]

I'm living in Copenhagen and about to start a contract job for my old company back in the UK. Their lawyers have said I need to get personal liability insurance.

Is this needed and if so, can anyone direct me to a suitable "retailer" for such a product?

Thanks,

Russell.

[Lucifer Box]

I'm living in Copenhagen and about to start a contract job for my old company back in the UK. Their lawyers have said I need to get personal liability insurance.

Is this needed and if so, can anyone direct me to a suitable "retailer" for such a product?

Thanks,

Russell.

Assuming you mean professional liability insurance, no it is not mandatory in law. However, more and more companies require their business partners to have such cover, and if they require it of your company you can either tow the line or refuse and see what happens. Have you signed a contract yet and, if so, what it does it say about insurance? Unless they want some ludicrous level of cover or you are working in a high risk business (or your company has a bad risk profile) it isn't very expensive. Caunce O' Hara are often mentioned as brokers who can arrange reasonable cover at a reasonable price, often bundled in with employers and public liability cover.

[WageSlave]

If sued by a client, can't you simply close the ltd and walk away?

[WageSlave]

they can sue you personally too...

I thought the whole point of having a ltd was to remove personal liability.

[Lucifer Box]

I thought the whole point of having a ltd was to remove personal liability.

Common misconception. A company can even sue its own employees for negligence.

[Lucifer Box]

Haven't heard of anyone in our business being sued

It's pretty unusual, which is why the premiums for a one man IT contracting company are lower than, say, a brain surgeon's!

However, if aslong's client has a business policy that says they will only deal with businesses with PI insurance, best to just get the checkbook out rather than kick up a fuss about it. We're talking low hundreds of pounds (potentially very low hundreds for a trivial level of cover, say £100k). It's also one other thing that can help to demonstrate you're running "a real business" when HMCR come knocking.

It's not just PI either, for example one of my major clients insists all of its suppliers have £10m of product liability insurance, even those who don't supply or manufacture "product". This is much more expensive and sets my company back a cool £5k a year.