Student entrepreneurs
Student entrepreneurs are no longer an exception today; More and more students decide to start a business during their studies or start working as a freelancer. Whatever your work entails, whether you are a lot in contact with people, you work with (or processing) products or are engaged in assembly or installation work: as a small business, you are exposed to various risks. The amounts of damage can be quite high in the business sphere. In general, students do not have a sufficient buffer to compensate for this damage: therefore, it is wise to take out a self-employed specific liability insurance policy.
Liability insurance for student entrepreneurs
There are different types of liability insurances for student entrepreneurs, in addition to the general liability insurances for self-employed, there are also sector-specific insurance policies. For example, focusing on advisory professions, care professions or construction and technical professions. This article will focus on liability insurance for companies (in Dutch: AVB).
As mentioned earlier, as a self-employed person or student entrepreneur you can come into contact with various unexpected damage events during your (freelance) activities. Consider the damage that you accidentally cause to other people’s personal property or damage to persons. Liability insurance for companies (AVB) offers wide coverage for such claims and is not really expensive. The insurance can be compared to legal liability insurance (WA). However, this insurance does not provide cover for damage caused in the business environment.
What is insured?
There are different categories that are covered in liability insurances for companies (AVB), so you are insured for:
| General liability | Damage caused by yourself as an insured during the performance of your work to, for example, persons or other people’s property |
| Product liability | If you have produced and delivered a product and have these defects, then you are liable. This damage is eligible for compensation |
| Risk liability | Risk liability for damage as, for example, the owner of a building |
| Damage to third-party property | Damage, disappearance or destruction of third-party property |
| Personal injury | Physical damage to health is compensated |
| Handling costs | Costs associated with the prevention or reduction of damage are eligible for reimbursement |
| Defense costs | If you are faced with an unfounded claim and you incur (legal) defense costs, these will be reimbursed |
| Interest | If you have to pay statutory interest on the damage, it will be reimbursed |
This table overview gives a general overview of the coverage of liability insurances for companies. For the exact coverage, it is still important to consult the policy terms and conditions of the insurer that you have in mind.
Which damage is not eligible for compensation?
There are also forms of damage that are not covered by a liability insurance. You can think of:
- Professional errors in the business services industry, such as incorrect advice
- Intentional damage
- Damage caused to your own things
- Damage to hardware or software
Where can you take out liability insurance for entrepreneurs?
There are several Dutch insurers that offer liability insurance specifically aimed at small independent entrepreneurs (self-employed). Centraal Beheer Achmea, among others, offers professional liability insurance. You can take out a special business package for the self-employed at Aegon which includes liability insurance as well as legal assistance insurance. To get an idea of the range of self-employed liability insurances, you can compare our top 5 liability insurances.
