On the website of the newly founded professional association for freelance authors in print and Online-Media, freelancers, I wrote the post about insurance for freelancers.

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No money to give

The good news: Freelance journalists don't have to Money give away. Many insurance policies that are offered on the market for the self-employed are simply superfluous for them - for example, operating cost or business interruption insurance, which the current Costs settle if that Office cannot be continued for a while.

However, if you have no employees and therefore no wage costs, you can take out private daily sickness benefits insurance or statutory sickness benefits Health insurance usually better. Also a bad debt insurance, which for example takes effect if the Customer is insolvent is only worthwhile for larger ones Companys, On the other hand, it may make sense to protect expensive equipment separately against damage to property. However, special insurance - such as for glass breakage, windstorm or fire - usually pays off.

Only hedge the most probable risks

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Rather, one should take out comprehensive insurance against the most likely risks. Which Insurance Also useful essentially depends on the risks one is exposed to. Ultimately, everyone has to weigh up what they are and how much money the feeling of security is worth to them. This also includes obtaining comprehensive information and independent advice. Under no circumstances should you – especially in the initial phase – compensate for your own professional insecurity by taking out any kind of policy in a hurry; the risk of taking on unnecessary or even overlapping policies is too great.

Disability insurance and alternatives

Disability insurance is useful. Because the state disability pension, which is due when you can no longer work as a person subject to pension insurance before retirement age, covers this Risks hardly off. The critical point in private disability insurance can be found under the Term “abstract reference”. If this is in the contract, the insurance company will check whether the entrepreneur could still do a related job in the event of disability - regardless of whether there are any jobs at all. Fortunately, this clause is rarely found in contract texts.

Especially with disability insurance, it is not important to find the cheapest one, but one that contains as few exclusion clauses as possible and optimally covers your own risks. It is important, for example, that the doctor who certifies the occupational disability can be chosen freely, and the same applies to the treatment method. You should also avoid contracts in which the insurance company requires you to switch to another, riskier one Job or report taking up a high-risk hobby and then have to pay correspondingly higher contributions.

Better: The once agreed conditions also apply to changes. Often the insurances also exclude pre-existing illnesses from the insurance. Therefore, if you do not get a good disability benefit, you have other options: Dread Disease Insurance: against single serious diseases, one Basic skills insurance: or a private Disability insurance. A private one Accident insurance: on the other hand, it only helps with accidents - worldwide and with low contributions, but statistically, diseases are much more common than accidents. The BG, in which free journalists can also hedge voluntarily, while paying even for occupational diseases, but their service catalog is severely limited.

Unemployment insurance

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The self-employed can also voluntarily insure themselves cheaply against unemployment, provided that they Foundation have been on state unemployment insurance for at least 2009 months. To do this, however, you must become self-employed no later than one month after the end of the old compulsory insurance and submit an application for voluntary continued insurance to your responsible employment agency no later than one month later. The costs of this insurance are low: You pay a fixed monthly contribution of (as of 17,64) €14,95 (West) or €XNUMX (East), independent of income.

However, the amount of unemployment benefit is not based on the contributions, but on the average income that you earn in your qualification level. So if you were classified as a university graduate, you could currently receive unemployment benefits of €1.390,80 per month. Even if this insurance is extremely cheap and useful - private unemployment insurance costs far more when the insurance is worse Performance – two things should be noted: Not every journalist with a university degree is also classified by the employment agency in the appropriate qualification group: For example, if the employment agency can only place you as an unskilled worker, you may only do so with an amount between €561 and €798,30 per month calculate month.

Those who can not insure themselves against unemployment because of the lack of prior periods of insurance can still apply for supplementary unemployment benefit II in the event of a case, thus increasing their earnings to their subsistence level. However, the unemployment benefit is not a subsidy to poor self-employment - even because of the conditions imposed by the employer.

Legal

To protect themselves against their legal risks, most freelance journalists first think of legal expenses insurance, which covers the cost risk of a legal dispute. However, this is not the case for every legal dispute: the insurance usually only covers the costs if there is a reasonable prospect of it Success offers and the insured person is not accused of culpable action - the companies check this very thoroughly. This eliminates all cases for which you could be held liable as a client (errors in articles, copyright infringement, late delivery, etc.). Legal expenses insurance, on the other hand, covers fee disputes customers or trouble with the tax office.

Also worth knowing is that the insurance cover usually starts after a waiting period of three months after the start of the insurance period.

This also applies to legal protection, which is a member of a professional association. Nevertheless, hedging is significantly cheaper. In addition, members of the association also receive free legal advice, while insurance companies do not take precautionary advice.

Liability insurance

Even if you work with the greatest possible care: Mistakes happen! In such cases, financial loss liability insurance helps: if a journalist writes something that causes financial damage to others. For example, if you damage someone else through copyright infringement or false claims, if the order is not completed on time or if you, as a website operator, are responsible for a violation in the Internet is warned.

It is important in this insurance that all risks are really hedged and the cover sum is chosen sufficiently large. If you also have a lot of customer contact in your office or work with other equipment, if there is a risk that you are harming other people or their property in your work, you should think about a liability insurance: This covers material and personal injury The company's own business, for example if a customer is injured in his own office.

Where to get good advice and help?

Since insurance is a complicated subject, it makes sense to selection consult the appropriate insurance professionals. There are good and bad, expensive and cheap options. Numerous sites on the Internet offer free comparison options for insurance companies. The problem with the quick comparison: As a rule, it is not possible to understand the criteria according to which rankings: : What is the use of low-cost insurance if the specific risk is not taken into account and is therefore completely unsuitable? In addition, these sites are often operated by insurance companies or brokers. Above all, the latter choose their offers mostly according to the best commission, so these surveys are often neither complete nor objective. One has the same problem when an insurance broker is personally and free of charge.

Good advice independent insurance advisers, which are really neutral, as well as the consumer centers. Insurance consultants may only name themselves who has the appropriate court approval. With this permission, any insurance brokerage is prohibited, so that a financially independent advice for the client is guaranteed. Unfortunately, this is not free, as these consultants get no commissions.

An inexpensive Alternatives: are the paid tables of the consumer centers or the tests of the Stiftung Warentest. Who in advance about the satisfaction who wants to inform customers about their insurance should take a look at the complaint statistics of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). The complaints are published here in an annual report broken down by insurance company and class. The number of complaints that BaFin has finally processed over the course of a year is compared with the number of contracts in the respective category. Naturally, companies with a satisfied customer base rarely appear in these complaint statistics.

The most common Problems Incidentally, arise at the Performance management. In case of disputes with the insurance you can not only contact the BaFin, but also an insurance ombudsman. His dispute resolution is accepted by most insurers. Up to a value in dispute of 5.000 Euro the decisions of the Ombudsman are even binding, until 50.000 Euro are made recommendations. In addition, the insurance company is obliged to point out that in the case of ambiguous decisions, one can also go to an arbitration expert.


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