Insur­ance for founders

Self-employed Which insur­ances are com­puls­ory and which are optional?

As a founder or self-employed per­son, you have many things to keep an eye on — from busi­ness devel­op­ment to fin­an­cial plan­ning. You should­n’t neg­lect the insur­ance cover for your com­pany and your­self. Here you can find out which insur­ance policies are import­ant for you as a founder and how to optim­ise your busi­ness cover.

Com­mer­cial insur­ance:

Pro­tect­ing your com­pany is essen­tial to avoid jeop­ard­ising its exist­ence in the event of dam­age. The fol­low­ing com­mer­cial insur­ance policies are par­tic­u­larly rel­ev­ant:

Busi­ness con­tent

This insur­ance pro­tects the entire con­tents of your com­pany (e.g. machinery, fur­niture, invent­ory) against risks such as fire, burg­lary, van­dal­ism or water dam­age. It is com­par­able to house­hold con­tents insur­ance, but spe­cific­ally for com­pan­ies.

Busi­ness inter­rup­tion

If your busi­ness is shut down due to dam­age — for example by fire or water — busi­ness inter­rup­tion insur­ance can help. It cov­ers the loss of profit and ongo­ing oper­at­ing costs until nor­mal busi­ness oper­a­tions can be resumed.

Pub­lic liab­il­ity

Busi­ness liab­il­ity insur­ance is one of the most import­ant forms of cover for founders. It takes effect if third parties suf­fer dam­age as a res­ult of your busi­ness activ­it­ies — for example, if someone falls in your shop or suf­fers dam­age as a res­ult of your products or ser­vices.

Fin­an­cial loss liab­il­ity

Die Ver­mö­gensschad­en­haft­p­f­lichtver­sicher­ung ist beson­ders für Berater, Recht­san­wälte oder andere Dienstleister wichtig, die in beratender Funk­tion arbeiten. Sie gre­ift, wenn durch deine Tätigkeit fin­an­zi­elle Schäden bei Drit­ten entstehen, z. B. durch eine falsche Ber­a­tung oder Fehlkalku­la­tion.

Cyber

Espe­cially in today’s digital world, com­pan­ies are increas­ingly the tar­get of cyber attacks. Cyber insur­ance pro­tects you against the con­sequences of hacker attacks, data loss or cyber­crime. For example, it cov­ers the costs of data recov­ery, busi­ness inter­rup­tion or liab­il­ity for data pro­tec­tion breaches.

But be care­ful: pay close atten­tion to when your cyber insur­ance takes effect. This is because you often have to provide com­plete doc­u­ment­a­tion of the pro­cesses and other data man­age­ment doc­u­ment­a­tion. If this is miss­ing, the insur­ance cover will lapse in the event of a claim. So read the small print and pre­pare your­self for a claim.

Click here to go to the Cyber insur­ance from R+V.

Legal pro­tec­tion

Legal expenses insur­ance helps you in the event of legal dis­putes — whether with cus­tom­ers, sup­pli­ers or employ­ees. It cov­ers the costs of law­yers, courts and any claims for dam­ages, offer­ing you fin­an­cial secur­ity in the event of an emer­gency.

Machine break­age

If you rely on expens­ive machines in your busi­ness, machine break­age insur­ance can be use­ful. It cov­ers dam­age to your machines caused by oper­at­ing errors, mater­ial defects or external influ­ences.

Trans­port

Trans­port insur­ance pro­tects your com­pany against fin­an­cial losses caused by dam­age or loss of goods dur­ing trans­port. 

Elec­tron­ics

Elec­tron­ics insur­ance offers you pro­tec­tion for elec­tronic devices such as com­puters, smart­phones, tele­vi­sions or machines against dam­age caused by external influ­ences such as fire, water, over­voltage, short cir­cuit or theft. It is par­tic­u­larly use­ful to cover expens­ive repairs or the replace­ment of devices.

Per­sonal insur­ances

Not only your com­pany, but also you as a founder should be well insured. Because in the event of ill­ness, occu­pa­tional dis­ab­il­ity or an acci­dent, you as a self-employed per­son must take care of your own pro­tec­tion.

Occu­pa­tional dis­ab­il­ity

The self-employed are often at a higher risk of los­ing their abil­ity to work. Occu­pa­tional dis­ab­il­ity insur­ance pro­tects you if you are no longer able to work due to ill­ness or acci­dent. In an emer­gency, it pays you a monthly pen­sion to secure your stand­ard of liv­ing.

Health insur­ance

As a self-employed per­son, you must either take out stat­utory or private health insur­ance. Stat­utory health insur­ance offers solid basic cover, while private health insur­ance often offers more cus­tom­ised bene­fits and shorter wait­ing peri­ods. Please note, how­ever, that as a self-employed per­son you must pay all con­tri­bu­tions your­self.

Pen­sion insur­ance

To provide for your retire­ment as a self-employed per­son, you can pay into the stat­utory pen­sion scheme vol­un­tar­ily or take out private pen­sion insur­ance. Stat­utory pen­sion insur­ance offers a state-guar­an­teed basic pen­sion in old age, while private pen­sion insur­ance often offers more flex­ible options for sav­ing cap­ital for retire­ment.

Vol­un­tary unem­ploy­ment insur­ance

Self-employed people have the option of tak­ing out vol­un­tary unem­ploy­ment insur­ance. This insur­ance offers you a fin­an­cial safety net if you have to give up your busi­ness and can­not find new employ­ment imme­di­ately. The premi­ums are mod­er­ate, but the pro­tec­tion can be cru­cial in an emer­gency.

Acci­dent

Stat­utory acci­dent insur­ance often does not auto­mat­ic­ally cover the self-employed. Private acci­dent insur­ance pro­tects you against the fin­an­cial con­sequences of an acci­dent, both at work and in your private life. It cov­ers the costs of rehab­il­it­a­tion meas­ures, hos­pit­al­isa­tion and pays a pen­sion if you are per­man­ently dis­abled.

D&O

D&O insur­ance (dir­ect­ors and officers insur­ance) is a spe­cial liab­il­ity insur­ance for people in man­age­ment pos­i­tions, such as you as a man­aging dir­ector. You have to make many import­ant decisions for the com­pany. If you make a mis­take that harms the com­pany or other people (e.g. share­hold­ers or cus­tom­ers), you can be held per­son­ally liable. This means that you may have to pay for the dam­age from your own assets.

D&O insur­ance pro­tects you as a man­ager against such fin­an­cial risks. It cov­ers the costs if you are sued for wrong decisions, breaches of the law or fail­ure to ful­fil your duties. In this way, the insur­ance ensures that you do not lose your per­sonal assets if you make a mis­take in your role.

Con­clu­sion: The right insur­ance cover for founders

Der richtige Ver­sicher­ungss­chutz ist ein zen­t­raler Best­andteil einer erfol­greichen Gründung. Gew­erb­liche Ver­sicher­ungen schützen dein Unterneh­men vor existen­zbed­ro­henden Risiken, während per­sön­liche Ver­sicher­ungen deine eigene fin­an­zi­elle Sich­er­heit gewähr­leisten. Mit dem passenden Schutz bist du für alle Even­tu­al­itäten ger­üstet und kannst dich voll auf den Erfolg deines Unternehmens konzentri­eren.

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