Insurance...?

[BolshieBastard]

Peace of mind for what? Yourco gets sued for a million pounds, but Yourco can only afford £100, goes bust, you start Yourco v2 and carry on. Not a good way to do business I agree, but you haven't technically done anything wrong, and your reputation with that client is harmed either way. Without the insurance there's a slim chance you lose whatever money is in the company, but with the insurance you definitely lose 178 pounds per every year.

But FWIW, I've just looked at my new contract and it said "thou shalt have insurance", and "thou shalt make the certificate available on request", so I've stumped up the money. Which is the point: if the client or agent insist on it, then it'd be stupid to lose a contract because you didn't have it, but do you need to have it otherwse?

Yep. I had to take out insurance because 'the client' demanded it according to the agent. Yeah right. But, I wasnt going to lose a good paying contract by not having it.

Some people do like to have insurance for peace of mind. That's up to them but if the contract doesnt insist on it, I dont bother. In fact this is only the 2nd time in over 13 years contracting I've taken insurance.

Wouldnt surprise me in this litigeous world we now live in that it starts to become more of a regular requirement.

[xoggoth]

Been said before but in law the person who did the job can be sued personally for negligence. Very unlikely in big projects with dev and test teams but on a small project with just you doing all the work, design, code and test, I would rather have it.