Outside IR35 now even harder to prove PGMOL ruling

[willendure]

The gotcha here is most (I believe) will have a 'Prospect of Success' clause. If there is little no not prospect of you winning they won't cover it. Who knows what that really means though. If you've put yourself inside or not carried out the proper diligence then it's not worth the paper it's written on. Bad news for your average tickbox IR35 contractor or those ones that don't give a jot about it all thinking the insurance will cover them. If the worst comes to the worst they could be in for a nasty surprise.

I was wondering what the get out clause would be...

Do they give you an up front assessment of the "Prospect of Success" clause? I mean do they review your contract and ask about the reality of your working relationship and so on, and then say either Yes/No this insurance is valid. Otherwise you could take the insurance with no idea of whether it is worth buying.

Thanks Zigenare for the Kingsbridge recommendation.

Yes, section 8 applies to my current situation.

[willendure]

I've got to ask though, how come you don't know this when you've been on the forums since 2015? Insurance was almost mandatory in the old days.

Been contracting since 2001. Mostly I have just been too busy working to have time to even think about it.

I do actually have insurance that will pay towards the costs of an investigation - the standard insurance that comes with an IPSE subscription and also covers jury service.

Only worrying now because of the new Labour government and uncertainty about where this is all going. Also had my contract reviewed professionaly recently and it came back as a weak case for being outside, with recommendations for strengthening it. I actually think my case is much stronger in reality than is reflected in the contract, so asking the hiring manager to issue an updated one that takes account of all the recomendations.

[willendure]

With reference to "IR35" Insurance I can recommend "Kingsbridge" and their "IR35 Protect Policy" they were very helpful in organising everything I needed.

I looked it up and it looks like they provide cover and do a status review as a package, which makes sense to me. Do you know if the insurance they sell you after the review is then guaranteed to be valid (assuming nothing changes that would affect the review)?

[northernladuk]

Been contracting since 2001. Mostly I have just been too busy working to have time to even think about it..

For me that's the completely the wrong attitude. Nothing more annoying that a tickbox IR35 contractor.It's fundamental to what you do. Paying IR35 lipservice is what started some of the investigations. The work stuff is easy, everyone, even perms can do that. Running your business properly is your main concern, particularly with the sums flying around people have had to pay. That's my opinion anyway and I'm sure someone will pop up and say us types that spend a lot of time on IR35 are just tin foil hat wearing loons. You'll probably get away with it but it's more by luck than design.

I looked it up and it looks like they provide cover and do a status review as a package, which makes sense to me. Do you know if the insurance they sell you after the review is then guaranteed to be valid (assuming nothing changes that would affect the review)?

No it isn't. You can destroy your own status by acting like a perm. Going to xmas does, falling in to part and parcel, letting the client direct you and all sorts. When the do a reasonble chance of success check and you've failed to act like a business they'll can it. So back to the comments above, take some responsibility and then you should be OK.

[Ketto]

I was wondering what the get out clause would be...

Do they give you an up front assessment of the "Prospect of Success" clause? I mean do they review your contract and ask about the reality of your working relationship and so on, and then say either Yes/No this insurance is valid. Otherwise you could take the insurance with no idea of whether it is worth buying.

Thanks Zigenare for the Kingsbridge recommendation.

Yes, section 8 applies to my current situation.

QDOS is:

Reasonable prospects of achieving a
satisfactory outcome exist if:

a) On the balance of probabilities, there is
a 51% or greater chance of successfully
pursuing or defending a claim; and
b) The benefits likely to be obtained by
proceeding with the claim justify the
likely costs.

[jamesbrown]

Tax loss insurance: generally worthless (or its worth is very hard to predict because, on the one hand, some providers might welcome the opportunity to prove its value but, on the other, they have tremendous latitude to not pay out).
Legal expenses cover: always worthwhile, because that is an unavoidable cost of investigation.

[Ketto]

Yeah i’d mostly agree. The investigation cover is an absolute must have. The tax cover is more of a comfort blanket which i take because it ‘may’ prove useful and even if it doesn’t end up being that it’s only a few hundred quid a year extra.

It has always occurred to me that if the engagement circumstances are such that HMRC can convince a tribunal it’s inside then the insurer will also likely have sufficient grounds to claim the insurance is invalid, if so inclined.

[Ketto]

So are people working outside now (or with realistic prospect of working outside in the future) seeing this as the prompt to stop working that way, or just treating it as another bump in the road to think about along with everything else?

[malvolio]

So are people working outside now (or with realistic prospect of working outside in the future) seeing this as the prompt to stop working that way, or just treating it as another bump in the road to think about along with everything else?

The direction of travel (given recent cases, the close ties between Labour and the unions and Brown's paper on what is a worker) leads this pessimist to think that contracting is dead for us one man bands. Even if you are outside the provisions of IR35, it won't be long before your relationship with your client is indistinguishable from that of an employee - except you probably won't have all the same rights and privileges.

Welcome to socialism, chaps.

[Ketto]

Does feel like the end of the road is coming…. Have been reliably able to get outside gigs since the new rules came in so will be interesting to see if clients react negatively to this.