What insurance has everybody got?

[Freelancer Financials]

PCG membership isn't just about insurance though...

That aside, as I've said many times, if someone accepts the risk that they will cover you for a potential 6-figure tax bill for a fee of a couple of hundred quid, you can be certain that they are pretty damned sure they won't ever have to pay it out.

Hi Malvolio, I hope your well. That's NOT how insurance works, if that was the case, why bother with any insurance products, such as:

Property Insurance
Life Insurance
Critical Illness Insurance
Professional Indemnity Insurance
IR35?

It's all based on risk that Actuaries calculate for on a daily basis. For instance, you can get a Life Insurance policy for £20/month and be covered for £300K.

Anyway, love reading your post.

[psychocandy]

PCG membership isn't just about insurance though...

That aside, as I've said many times, if someone accepts the risk that they will cover you for a potential 6-figure tax bill for a fee of a couple of hundred quid, you can be certain that they are pretty damned sure they won't ever have to pay it out.

Agree with Malv here. Which is why I went with PCG+.

Not sure but I don't think anyone (Abbey Tax via PCG or QDOS) have EVER had to shell out when they lost?

[Daventry]

Uhm, I see. Since QDos is more expensive I had assumed it was because they cover for losses.

[psychocandy]

Hi Malvolio, I hope your well. That's NOT how insurance works, if that was the case, why bother with any insurance products, such as:

Property Insurance
Life Insurance
Critical Illness Insurance
Professional Indemnity Insurance
IR35?

It's all based on risk that Actuaries calculate for on a daily basis. For instance, you can get a Life Insurance policy for £20/month and be covered for £300K.

Anyway, love reading your post.

Yes. But surely the insurer is working out here that if they take £20 a month off you, on average, you aint going to claim? Otherwise, they'd be stupid paying out £300K when they know theres a good chance of you claiming......

I see what Malv is saying. £300-400 a year with a potential payout of £200K or more means the companies are pretty sure that they're not going to have to payout (like the life insurance).

Surely compared with car insurance, £400 a year maybe but they know theres a chance you might claim but it'll be £10-£20K at most.

[kevpuk]

Surely compared with car insurance, £400 a year maybe but they know theres a chance you might claim but it'll be £10-£20K at most.

Hhmm, don't know about this - using car insurance as an example, the main reason for premiums being what they are is the P(ersonal) I(njury) element, and the associated claims culture we are embroiled in. Everyone 'hurts their neck' and so on in any old innocuous shunt, and the payouts go through the roof......having spent a while with insurance companies over the years, some of the injury payouts can run to several hundreds of thousands of pounds and more!

Insurance is what it is - simply a way of mitigating or eliminating future financial risk. There is a duty of care from the proposer to honestly offer all the relevant details and facts; the insurer then underwrites based on risk assessment of those exact facts, via actuarial calculations and historically relevant information.

[GB9]

Maybe, but as a PCG member you would be the first to hear of it, you would be told what to do about it by some of best qualified advisors on the subject, you would be helping the contractor community fight against it and you would be represented at the meeting where such changes are discussed prior to their announcement.

Protection takes many forms. Stopping things happening in the first place is better than reacting to them when they do.

Agree with the last point, but decisions can be made at tribunals, and not necessarily beforehand. I don't want to be the one on the wrong end of such a decision. As others have stated, insurance is there for the unexpected. In one of your later posts you state that for a policy of a few hundred quid the insurer doesn't expect the risk to occur, and i would agree with this. But equally, I don't expect my house to burn down but I have smoke alarms and insurance just in case.

From what I have seen of the PCG, it has done nothing to alleviate IR35, either in terms of stopping it dead, or even in terms of clarifying it. Minutes from the meetings with HMRC suggest it is completely ignored. What was the last IR35 thing it achieved?

[malvolio]

From what I have seen of the PCG, it has done nothing to alleviate IR35, either in terms of stopping it dead, or even in terms of clarifying it. Minutes from the meetings with HMRC suggest it is completely ignored. What was the last IR35 thing it achieved?

You've not been paying attention then.

Most of the current clarity over IR35, such as it is, has been driven by the PCGs's efforts over the last 13 years. They had persuaded the Tories that they should kill it off, but once elected Osborne decided he would rather keep it on the statute books to prevent Friday to Monday. Work since then has been about defining the scope of who should be caught, but if the senior Civil Servants in the Treasury and HMRC collectviely refuse to listen to expert advice and go their own way, there' s not a hell of a lot anyone can do about it.

You should also read George Young's recent statement on the flexible economy, most of which was driven by PCG's lobbying efforts. Also, you aren't paying taxes on your wife's dividends, bringing in temporary non-EU people to steal our jobs is now a lot more difficult and far less cost-effective, there is now absolute clarity over when you can demand security clearance when applying for a role (which the agencies are ignoring of course, but that will change) and right now PCG are working to get the Alexander review sorted so that anyone going for a public sector role is not forced to apply IR35 whether it is right to do so or not.

As I said, PCG is about a lot more than IR35 insurance.

[Freelancer Financials]

Yes. But surely the insurer is working out here that if they take £20 a month off you, on average, you aint going to claim? Otherwise, they'd be stupid paying out £300K when they know theres a good chance of you claiming......

Hi Psychocandy,

A Life policy pays out on death or terminal illness. If you die whilst your insured they pay out (to your family or dependents, who ever the beneficiary is), it's as simple as that. The reason why Insurers can do this is because NOT everyone who takes out a policy will die at the same time. And also people these days typically live a lot longer. It's no different to a "death in service" policy that a employer takes out.

Life policy is NOT like critical illness or income protection, which is based on definitions of illness. You're either dead or alive? It's pretty straight forward.

For example, let's say you're 35 years old and you take out a Life Policy for a 25 year term. If you die after the age of 60 you get nothing.

However, if you die within the Insured term, the Insurers, can not refuse payout, if you die.

[GB9]

You've not been paying attention then.

Most of the current clarity over IR35, such as it is, has been driven by the PCGs's efforts over the last 13 years. They had persuaded the Tories that they should kill it off, but once elected Osborne decided he would rather keep it on the statute books to prevent Friday to Monday. Work since then has been about defining the scope of who should be caught, but if the senior Civil Servants in the Treasury and HMRC collectviely refuse to listen to expert advice and go their own way, there' s not a hell of a lot anyone can do about it.

You should also read George Young's recent statement on the flexible economy, most of which was driven by PCG's lobbying efforts. Also, you aren't paying taxes on your wife's dividends, bringing in temporary non-EU people to steal our jobs is now a lot more difficult and far less cost-effective, there is now absolute clarity over when you can demand security clearance when applying for a role (which the agencies are ignoring of course, but that will change) and right now PCG are working to get the Alexander review sorted so that anyone going for a public sector role is not forced to apply IR35 whether it is right to do so or not.

As I said, PCG is about a lot more than IR35 insurance.

There is no clarity over IR35....just confusion and interpretation. e.g. the BETs are hardly a positive result, and the advice from most advisory bodies is that they do not actually reflect the law.

And if bringing in temporary non-EU people is so difficult, then why are half the posts on his board about Bob's doing a poor job for half the expected rate?

[malvolio]

There is no clarity over IR35....just confusion and interpretation. e.g. the BETs are hardly a positive result, and the advice from most advisory bodies is that they do not actually reflect the law.

Disagree. There is firm case law regarding IR35, driven by tribunal appeals funded by the various insirance providers. The lack of clarity is down to the refusal to accept that contractors are separate businesses an dall the agency FUD that is used to secure their business. The BETs are an irrelevance anyway, since they are so far from reality: unless you decide to use them to indicate that you are caught by IR35 as opposed to being liable for investigation for being caught, which is what the Alexander review has made happen.

And if bringing in temporary non-EU people is so difficult, then why are half the posts on his board about Bob's doing a poor job for half the expected rate?

Because (a) it will take time to send back the ones already here that can be sent back that were allowed in under the old rules and (b) the Anti-Business Secretary has bought the lie that we don't have a skilled workforce of our own so is positively encouraging the importation of cheap labour.