Professional indemnity insurance for Freelance PRs. Anyone else have it? Can you recommend a provider? Or do I really need it?

[moodlumhohohoodlum]

I've just set up as self employed PR, and got my first client, and although I don't start working with them until Feb, I suddenly wondered about indemnity insurance.

I think I probably need indemnity insurance to cover me in case someone were to sue me. Does anyone else have this? I know that its better to be set up as a limited company in these circumstances, to protect your house etc, but am I right in thinking that as a limited company I would have to charge VAT?

Thanks. I know there are a lot of questions here!

I used to do PI insurance claims and frankly I can never understand anyone trying to offer any professionsl service without it.Customers are lovely but they will sue you for anything
I would go on website for someone like Hiscoxs and see if they answer your specific questions.

Most decent brokers/direct insurers will do single practitioners covers from a lineslip - so you will get a decent basic cover without it needing to be v expensive

great - thanks - we've got our house insurance with hiscox, do they do this type of insurance too?

I'll have a look round. thanks for the info.

I use this lot

they seemed very competitive

I have insurance, from Towergate as I get a discount through my professional body.

I am also a limited company. You don't have to charge VAT as you don't have to register for it until your turnover is £60,000 or something like that. I haven't registered yet but will in the New Year.

and the website is great, you can order online and print all your certs/policy docs off.

This is all really helpful thanks. I've only just thought about all this and it seems a minefield.

I don't see why you WOULDN'T want to register for VAT. Have you looked into the flatrate scheme? You charge VAT at the normal rate (15%) but only pass on about 9% (it depends on sector) to the VATman, which means you keep the difference

So long as your customers are VAT registered too, they can claim it back.

I need to think about this much more carefully. I'm just concerned that I will be the one bearing the VAT burden, which if my t/o is less than 25k seems an unnecessary hindrance. But that's really helpful info furrycat thanks, it shows me that I need to do a lot more homework!

What furrycat says. I will be doing the flat rate scheme when I get round to registering.

furrycat - what is the flat rate scheme (pardon my ignorance)?

instead of adding up what you receive in VAT and subtracting what you've paid out in VAT for your return, you charge VAT as normal, ignore VAT you've paid out, and pay over a smaller percentage to HMRC. Different trypes of business activity have different percentage levels. Also, you get a 1% discount on what you need to pay to HMRC in your first year of VAT registration.

HMRC Flat Rate VAT pages

Yup, that's right - think the flat rates have changed now though since VAT went down.

Alternatively you can charge for VAT and then set that against the VAt you pay out. But flat rate is much simpler.