🛡️ Business insurance for self-employed people
In brief
As a self-employed person you bear business risks that neither statutory social insurance nor any policy covers automatically. For some professions – such as lawyers, tax advisers or architects – professional liability insurance is required by law. For most other self-employed people insurance is voluntary, but depending on the activity economically sensible or even essential to survival.
Step by step
- Check for compulsory insuranceCheck whether compulsory statutory insurance exists for your profession – for example for chamber professions such as lawyers, tax advisers, auditors, architects or notaries.
- Provide proofNotify the responsible chamber of the professional liability insurance or provide the proof that is a requirement for admission or appointment where insurance is compulsory.
- Consider voluntary accident insuranceConsider voluntary accident insurance with the responsible Berufsgenossenschaft (statutory accident insurance body) (§ 6 SGB VII), provided no compulsory insurance under § 2 SGB VII applies.
- Cover disabilityClarify the need for cover against occupational disability, especially if there is no compulsory pension insurance and therefore no statutory reduced earning capacity pension (Erwerbsminderungsrente).
- Consider supplementary policiesDepending on business risk, consider supplementary policies such as legal expenses, contents, electronics or cyber insurance.
- Adjust insured sumsAdjust insured sums regularly to the development of turnover and risk, in particular where there are statutory minimum sums for a chamber profession.
Deadlines
- Business liability (property and personal injury to third parties) and professional liability (financial loss from faulty professional services) are confused – they cover different risks, and often only one of the two is taken out.
- Despite digital business processes, cyber insurance is often missing: business and professional liability insurance as a rule do not cover own losses from hacker attacks, data loss or business interruption.
- It is wrongly assumed that statutory accident insurance exists automatically for entrepreneurs: under § 2 SGB VII, in principle only employees are insured by law, most self-employed people must insure themselves voluntarily under § 6 SGB VII.
- Cover against occupational disability is often missing: self-employed people without compulsory pension insurance have no entitlement to the statutory reduced earning capacity pension; private disability insurance does not automatically close this gap 1:1, as a different definition of occupational disability applies.
- Minimum insured sums for chamber professions are not adjusted to the legal form – for professional practice companies, partly different, higher minimum sums apply than for the individual practice.
In depth · legal basis, figures and practice – for advisers and professionals
Compulsory insurance for certain professions
Under § 51 BRAO, lawyers must take out and maintain professional liability insurance; minimum insured sums of €250,000 per insured event for individual lawyers and reduced minimum sums for professional practice companies are cited – these euro amounts come from secondary sources and were not verified directly against the statutory text. Tax advisers are likewise subject to a duty to carry professional liability insurance under § 67 StBerG; the specific minimum insured sum is not in the statutory text itself, but presumably in an implementing ordinance that was not checked in full text in this research. For architects and engineers the insurance obligation arises from the respective state laws, with minimum sums that differ from state to state.
Statutory accident insurance: compulsory versus voluntary
§ 2 SGB VII lists the people insured by law, including employees, trainees and certain self-employed groups such as agricultural entrepreneurs, home-based traders and coastal skippers. For most other self-employed people – craftspeople, freelancers, traders – there is no automatic compulsory insurance; voluntary insurance is possible under § 6 SGB VII. Important for distinction: the frequently cited “compulsory insurance for craftspeople in the Handwerksrolle” concerns the obligation to pay into pension insurance under § 2 sentence 1 no. 8 SGB VI, not accident insurance under SGB VII.
Occupational disability versus reduced earning capacity pension
Self-employed people subject to compulsory pension insurance are, under certain conditions, entitled to the statutory reduced earning capacity pension (Erwerbsminderungsrente) of Deutsche Rentenversicherung. Self-employed people not subject to compulsory pension insurance do not have this protection automatically – for them private disability insurance (Berufsunfähigkeitsversicherung) is the central cover option, with its own benefit conditions that differ from social law.
Supplementary policies
Legal expenses insurance covers the costs of legal disputes with customers, suppliers or authorities. Contents insurance covers damage to business equipment and goods. Cyber insurance supplements business and professional liability with own losses from IT security incidents such as data loss, business interruption or extortion.
A question about your situation that this page does not answer? Write to us or use the contact form – we will tell you which office is responsible and what to bring. Free of charge, without individual legal advice.