It's one of the questions I get asked most by people registering as self-employed: do I have to take out liability insurance, full stop? The short answer is no — there's no single rule that obliges you simply because you're self-employed. But that short answer falls short in practice, because whether it's compulsory depends on your specific activity, and often the one asking for it isn't the law, but a contract, a licence or a client.

Is liability insurance compulsory for the self-employed?

There's no general law that obliges any self-employed person, whatever their activity, to take out liability insurance. What does exist are specific obligations: certain regulated professions tied to a professional body, certain activities subject to sector-specific rules, and some municipal or regional permits and licences that require it as a condition. Outside those specific cases, the decision to take it out or not is, in principle, up to you.

The trouble with stopping at that idea is that it leaves out the most common situation I come across working with self-employed people and small shops: even if the law doesn't oblige you directly, someone else can still require it before you can work. It's the difference between "compulsory by law" and "compulsory in practice", and for your wallet the outcome is the same: without the policy, you don't get started.

When you really are asked for it to work

This is the real-world scenario behind most of the enquiries I receive: a local council asks for liability insurance to grant an activity licence; a platform or marketplace requires it to register you as a supplier or collaborating professional; or, quite simply, a client — especially a company — won't sign with you without seeing a valid certificate first. In none of these cases is there a law imposing it on you directly, but the effect is identical to a legal obligation.

The idea, in one sentence: even if the general law doesn't require it, if a contract, a licence or a client asks for it, in practice it's compulsory for you to be able to work.

RC General is designed to solve exactly this situation: liability cover towards third parties, sized to your activity as a self-employed professional or shop owner, with the certificate you need to show whenever someone asks for it.

The liability certificate: what it is and how long it takes

When a council, a client or a platform tells you "I need to see your liability insurance", they almost never want to see the whole policy: what they're asking for is the liability certificate, the document that proves cover is in force, for what activity and to what extent. It's the piece of paper — or PDF — that actually circulates between self-employed people, accountants and public bodies.

Once the policy is taken out, the certificate is usually available within a few days. If you have a deadline ahead of you — a tender, the start date of a contract, a licence deadline — it's worth starting the process with some margin, rather than leaving it to the last moment and finding out you need the document before you can actually have it.

This article is general information and doesn't replace personalised advice about your situation. Whether liability insurance is compulsory depends on your specific activity, on your professional body (if you have one) and on the regional or municipal rules that apply to you; to confirm this for your situation, check with your accountant or request a quote and we'll review it together.

Which type of liability cover you need

Not all liability insurance covers the same thing, and choosing the right modality depends on what your actual activity looks like, not a generic table. These are the most common combinations I review with self-employed people and small shops:

  • ✓Operations liability, which covers damage you cause to third parties in the normal course of your daily activity.
  • ✓Employer's liability, if you have staff: it covers claims for damage suffered by your own employees.
  • ✓Premises liability, designed for when you're a tenant of the premises you work from and are liable to the owner for certain damage.
  • ✓Product liability, if you manufacture, sell or supply something: it covers damage caused once the product has left your hands.

It's common to combine two or three of these modalities depending on your case, rather than taking them all out as standard. If, on top of liability cover, you also want to protect your premises, stock or tools against fire, theft or breakdown, that's no longer liability insurance but a multi-risk policy, such as Business Insurance , which can either bundle liability into the same policy or keep it separate, whichever suits you better.

What liability insurance covers and doesn't cover

Liability insurance covers the compensation you have to pay a third party for damage caused unintentionally in your activity, and it also includes legal defence against that claim — including one you consider unfair or unfounded — with lawyers and court representatives defending your position. What it doesn't cover is fines or administrative penalties, which are excluded by their very nature, nor damage to your own property: your tools, your stock or your premises need their own cover, not third-party liability insurance.

And if what really worries you isn't damage to a third party, but what would happen to your own income if you were the one to have an accident and couldn't work, I explain that in detail in what happens to your income if you're off work after an accident: they're two different protections, and in many cases, complementary ones.

Before recommending anything, my job is to understand your activity, who's asking you for liability cover and why, so we can size the modality and the limits with real data, not a standard policy that doesn't fit your case.