Business Insurance

If you are operating your own business then you will need to consider whether you need, or indeed are required, to take out business insurance. You should review your new contract, as many agencies have a mandatory requirement for Professional Indemnity Insurance and most agencies will insist on cover for Employers’ Liability Insurance and Public Liability Insurance.

The decision as to which insurance is required and also as to what constitutes an appropriate level of cover, are considerations which HMRC would expect a person “genuinely in business” to make. Taking out business insurance is therefore helpful from an IR35 perspective.

At Danbro you can include all of the following business insurances within your accountancy service fee for just an additional £20 per month.

• Professional Indemnity Insurance - protection for any loss suffered by your client due your negligent advice or work. Many contracts will now stipulate that you hold this cover and will often set the level of cover required too, and for some professions such as law and accountancy, it is compulsory to have this insurance cover.
• Public Liability Insurance - protection for damage claims from third parties. Examples of such claims may be that you spill coffee and cause damage to a client computer, or a client staff member trips over your equipment and harms themselves.
• Employers’ Liability Insurance - legally required if you have at least one employee. This will not be required if your business is just you. However, if you are operating your contract(s) outside IR35 you are more than likely to have a substitution clause to allow the right to use another company representative to perform the contract work. In the absence of Employers’ Liability Insurance, you cannot fulfill this clause without breaking the law, so in practice you should have this cover.

For more information, please call 0800 731 3178