Business insurance in the Netherlands, explained in English

Which business insurance do I actually need in the Netherlands?

Most business insurances are not compulsory by law. What you need depends on your work, your staff and what you own.

• Business liability insurance (AVB): covers injury to others and damage to their property.
• Professional indemnity insurance (BAV): covers pure financial loss from mistakes in your work.
• Business interruption insurance (bedrijfsschadeverzekering): covers the turnover you lose while you cannot work after an incident.
• Buildings insurance (opstalverzekering) and contents insurance (inventarisverzekering): cover your business premises and what is in them.
• Motor insurance: third-party cover (WA) is compulsory for every motor vehicle on the public road.
• Absence insurance (verzuimverzekering), if you have staff: covers continued pay during illness.
• Cyber insurance: covers costs after a hack or data breach.
• Cargo insurance (goederentransportverzekering): covers your own goods during transport.
• Legal expenses insurance (rechtsbijstandverzekering): pays lawyers, legal advisers and court costs in a legal dispute.

More cover isn't better cover; the right cover is.

What is compulsory by law, and what will clients and landlords demand?

Few business insurances are compulsory by law in the Netherlands. Third-party liability (WA) cover is compulsory for every motor vehicle on the public road. For aircraft, minimum liability cover is set by EU Regulation 785/2004. Whether a minimum applies to a drone depends on its weight and use; we check that per case. Once you have employees, you must have a contract with an occupational health service (arbodienst), a risk inventory and evaluation (RI&E) with an action plan, and a prevention officer. These are legal obligations, not insurances, but they affect your cover.

Everything else is not compulsory by law, but is often required in practice. Clients put liability insurance in their purchasing terms, tenders set a minimum insured amount, industry bodies require it for membership or a quality mark, landlords require it, and a bank that finances your building usually requires the building to be insured. Professional indemnity is often required by clients, professional bodies or a collective labour agreement.

Our landlord or client requires a minimum amount of liability cover. What does that mean, and can you confirm the policy meets it?

It means your policy has to pay out at least that amount, and the contract says whether that is per claim, per occurrence or per year. A Dutch policy states its limit in its own terms: in Nationale-Nederlanden's business liability conditions (AVB100.0520, May 2020), for example, the insured amount applies per claim and per insurance year, for all insured together. So the wording of the policy has to be put next to the wording of the contract.

Your client or landlord may also ask for a certificate of insurance, or to be named as co-insured. The legal name must match exactly: a policy with the right amount but the wrong party on it does not formally meet the requirement. And in the Nationale-Nederlanden and De Goudse conditions, if you accept more liability in a contract than the law imposes, that extra part is not insured, except where you would have been liable anyway.

Conditions differ per insurer and per policy version. Send us the clause as it is written in your contract. We put the policy or proposal next to it and confirm in writing whether it meets the requirement. If there is a gap, you hear it before you sign.

Liability (AVB) or professional indemnity (BAV): which one do I need?

Business liability insurance (AVB) covers injury to other people and damage to their property. Professional indemnity insurance (BAV) covers pure financial loss from mistakes in your work, such as wrong advice or a calculation error. The two cover different kinds of loss and do not overlap. What one excludes is not automatically picked up by the other.

For advisers, consultants, IT, architects and engineers, the BAV is often the more important one. For contractors, installers and hospitality businesses it is the other way round. Many businesses have one and think they are covered for both.

Some examples. A technician puts a ladder against a client's facade and a window falls out: property damage, so AVB. A visitor trips over a cable and breaks a wrist: injury, AVB. An adviser gets a calculation wrong and the client delivers half a year late: a loss without injury or damage, so BAV. A professional indemnity policy is usually "claims made": what counts is when the claim is made and reported, not when the mistake happened.

I work under a main contractor's policy on most jobs. What about the work I do for my own clients?

Do not assume the contractor's policy covers you. In the Nationale-Nederlanden conditions, a hired self-employed person counts as insured on the contractor's AVB only if they work under the contractor's explicit direction and can be treated as an employee. If you organise your own work, you need your own policy. In those conditions your own policy covers you only for the business activities described on it, so that description has to include the jobs you do for your own clients.

When you work at a client's place, those conditions exclude damage to the parts you are working on, the parts the job is about, parts your working method unavoidably involves and anything you use as a tool (goods in your care, zaken onder opzicht). If you damage something else in the building, that is covered if you are liable. Your own work is not covered either: if a pump you installed fails and floods the basement, the water damage is covered if you are liable, but the pump itself, replacing it and redoing the job are not. On building work, a CAR policy covers the work itself.

Tell us which work falls under the contractor's policy and which does not, and we put both side by side for gaps and double cover. Your own income if you cannot work is a separate question: see disability insurance.

We make and sell our own products, in the Netherlands and abroad. Does our liability insurance include product liability?

In the Nationale-Nederlanden AVB conditions it does: product liability is one of the three parts of the business liability policy, next to general business liability and employer's liability. It covers damage to others caused by goods you put on the market or supplied. Damage to the product itself, recall and replacement costs are not covered: a liability policy is not a guarantee on your own product.

Where you sell matters. In those conditions the cover area for products supplied is Europe, and claims brought in the US or Canada, or under US or Canadian law, are not covered. If you sell outside Europe, tell us before we arrange cover.

A client abroad, for example in the US, asks for a certificate of insurance. Does my Dutch cover work there?

A client can ask for a certificate of insurance and to be named as co-insured, and we check that request against the policy before you sign. Whether the cover itself works for that client depends on the policy. In the Nationale-Nederlanden AVB conditions, cover for products supplied and work delivered applies in Europe; for other causes and business trips it is worldwide, unless you do work or deliver products during the trip; then the European area applies, but claims brought in the US or Canada, or under their law, are not covered. If you have a branch or establishment outside the Netherlands, damage connected with it is excluded.

For professional indemnity the cover area depends on the insurer. In SUREbusiness's general conditions, a claim is covered only if it is brought in a country of the European Economic Area, Switzerland or the United Kingdom and the law of one of those countries applies. Some SUREbusiness conditions for specific professions are stricter and require Dutch law. Markel's professional indemnity conditions we checked cover the whole world, except claims to which US law applies or that are brought before a US court; other Markel policies are limited to Europe. Conditions differ per insurer and per policy version, so tell us where your clients and your work are before we choose an insurer.

We want to hire our first employee. What do we need to arrange, and what does it cost?

Four things. The first is one of the biggest financial risks of having staff.

• Continued pay during illness, and absence insurance (verzuimverzekering). By law you continue paying wages during illness for up to 104 weeks, at least 70% of the wage, up to a statutory maximum daily wage (article 7:629 Dutch Civil Code). Your collective labour agreement (cao) or employment contract often promises more. If the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) finds you did too little on reintegration, it can impose a wage sanction of up to one extra year of pay. Absence insurance covers this risk.
• A contract with an occupational health service (arbodienst). Required by the Working Conditions Act, and absence insurers make such a contract a condition of cover.
• A risk inventory and evaluation (RI&E) with an action plan, and a prevention officer. With at most 25 employees you may be the prevention officer yourself.
• Employer's liability, including traffic. If an employee has an accident at work and holds you liable, you have to show you met your duty of care for a safe workplace, or that the accident was largely due to the employee's intent or deliberate recklessness (article 7:658 Dutch Civil Code). Accidents while driving or cycling for work often fall outside the ordinary liability policy, and Dutch Supreme Court rulings made it a duty to have proper insurance for staff who take part in traffic for work. Employer's liability insurance for traffic (WEGAM) is meant for that.

Absence insurance comes in three forms: conventional (per sick employee, with a deductible in waiting days), stop-loss (the total absence of all staff above a deductible in euros), and, since 2020, SME absence insurance for smaller employers (the insurer bears a wage sanction, and you get a fixed case manager). After 104 weeks UWV assesses the employee for the WIA. For the partial disability part (WGA), you as employer choose in advance whether UWV carries the risk or you do, as own risk bearer.

What it costs depends on your payroll, number of employees, sector, absence history, the deductible, the cover percentage in year 1 and year 2 and the occupational health services included. Insurers weigh these differently, so comparing pays off more here than for most policies. We give no premium promise up front, but put the same starting points to several insurers.

We run company cars, vans or taxis. Does our business liability policy cover them?

No. A business liability policy (AVB) excludes damage with or by motor vehicles, and the Nationale-Nederlanden conditions even say literally that the AVB is not meant as a supplement to, or a replacement of, motor insurance. Third-party cover (WA) is compulsory for every motor vehicle on the public road, even when it stands still, unless it is suspended at the RDW.

Your vehicles belong on a motor policy or a fleet policy (wagenparkverzekering). A fleet policy puts all vehicles under one contract, with one renewal date and the claims history judged at fleet level. You choose the level of cover per vehicle or group: third-party, limited casco or full casco. We arrange a fleet policy from five vehicles; below that, separate policies are often just as competitive. If employees drive your vehicles, consider an insurance for occupants (schadeverzekering inzittenden), which pays injury to driver and passengers, even if your own employee caused the accident.

Our landlord requires CAR insurance for the fit-out or renovation of our premises. What should the policy include?

A CAR policy (Construction All Risks, CAR-verzekering) covers sudden damage during building or renovation: damage to the works, to the existing building, liability to third parties and theft of materials. It exists next to the AVB because the AVB excludes exactly what you are working on. Landlords often demand one from their tenant; in De Goudse's conditions for landlords, for example, damage connected with building, renovation, demolition and maintenance of the rented building is not covered.

What to check. The insured amount for damage to the existing building is separate from the contract sum. The cover should run for the full works period, including the days before the official start and the maintenance period afterwards, which you agree in advance. A landlord sets a minimum amount and often also requires to be named as insured on the policy: those are two separate requirements. If your contractor already has a CAR, do not assume you are covered: in one common Dutch contractor's policy the client's property runs through a separate section with its own insured amount.

Our proposals list the exclusions and deductibles. Send us the clause from your lease: we put the proposal next to it and confirm in writing whether it meets it. And call before the first day of work, because damage that happened before the policy starts is not covered.

We ship goods abroad. Who insures them on the way?

Not the carrier, or only in part. A carrier may limit its liability by law and by transport convention: compensation is tied to the weight of the shipment, not its value, so with light, expensive goods you get only part back.

Cargo insurance (goederentransportverzekering) covers your own goods during transport by road, sea, air or rail, including loading, unloading and storage on the way. You choose cover per shipment, reported in advance with destination, value and mode of transport (not reported means no cover), or an annual policy. The delivery terms in your sales contract decide who bears the risk, and so who should insure. If you transport other people's goods, that risk belongs on a cargo or carrier's liability policy, not on the AVB.

Does it matter whether I trade as a sole trader or through a BV?

Yes. How you have set up affects what you can and should insure, and who is liable for what. A BV protects your private assets against business risk, but not against a claim against you personally as director: with improper management, a late filing or a bankruptcy, a receiver or a third party can hold you personally liable, even as sole shareholder. Directors' liability insurance (D&O) covers that claim and the defence costs.

Your own income works differently too. For a self-employed person, disability insurance insures the profit from the business. For a director-major shareholder (DGA) it concerns your salary from the BV and the fixed costs that keep running in the BV if you drop out; whether you also have a safety net from the employee insurances depends on your position in the BV, which we check with your accountant. A bread fund (broodfonds) gives at most two years of donations from fellow members, then it stops.

Buying a home on self-employed income? See our page on mortgages for self-employed internationals. And if your family depends on your business income, term life insurance is often the next thing to arrange.

What does your advice cost?

For business property and casualty insurance, for example liability, the buildings policy for your premises or vehicle insurance, the insurer pays us a commission and you pay us no separate advice fee. For disability insurance (AOV) and term life insurance a statutory commission ban applies: the insurer pays us nothing and you pay us a fee agreed in advance. You hear which applies before we start.

Bouvy Advies is an independent adviser in Naarden. We have no insurance product of our own and are not an insurer. We go through the risks of your business, find the gaps and the double cover, put the same starting points to several insurers and lay the quotes side by side, comparing dozens of Dutch insurers on conditions and premium, not on price alone. If there is a claim, you report it to us: we file it with the insurer, put the policy conditions next to it and follow the handling until it is paid. You keep one fixed contact who knows your business.

The first conversation is without obligation. You can also use our business insurance check (in Dutch): a few questions about your business and your current policies, after which we lay those policies side by side. AFM licence 12046005, registered with Kifid (300.017.178). Insurance for yourself and your family: see insurance for expats. Anything else: start at our English homepage.