Your consultant, their systems, your policy. Get the order right.
Insurance for IT staffing and technical recruiting firms — the E&O and cyber client contracts demand for placed engineers, the employment exposure of a W-2 bench, and workers comp priced for people who never visit your office.
Tell us the situation.
A licensed human replies the same business day — not an auto-responder, and not five producers calling at once. We shop it across our carriers and tell you if the policy you already have is the right one.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
What IT staffing businesses actually need.
Cyber & tech E&O
Breach response, ransomware and the notification costs that follow. Technology errors and omissions sits on the same policy and covers the software or service itself failing a client, which is the half most tech companies find out about too late.
Without it — Your placed engineers work inside client systems under your agreement — a claim that one of them caused an incident arrives addressed to you.
Professional liability
Covers the advice, the drawing, the diagnosis — the work itself, rather than someone getting hurt on your premises.
Without it — The placement itself is professional advice: the candidate who was not what the resume said, the vacancy filled with the wrong clearance.
Employment practices liability
Wrongful termination, discrimination and harassment claims brought by your own employees. General liability specifically excludes these.
Without it — A W-2 bench working under client direction is a dual-employment exposure — claims can name the agency, the client, or both, and the agency’s policy answers first.
Workers compensation
Required in almost every state the moment you have employees. Priced on payroll and class code, which is why the class code is worth arguing about.
Without it — Staffing comp is priced by what placed workers actually do, not what the office does — misclassified class codes are the audit surprise of this industry.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — Client staffing agreements borrow their limit requirements from vendor templates, and excess is how a mid-size agency meets enterprise numbers.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage — the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — The base certificate line on every staffing agreement, before anyone reads the interesting exhibits.
An IT staffing firm placed a contract engineer with production access at a client. The staffing agreement made the agency responsible for the contractor’s errors and required technology E&O and cyber at limits the agency’s package policy did not carry — signed by a sales team who never showed legal the exhibit.
We placed the tech E&O and cyber the agreement actually described, with excess bringing the certificate to the named limit, and set a review step so the next client exhibit got read before signature rather than after. The client relationship survived its own paperwork.
What IT staffing operators ask us.
A placed contractor broke something in the client’s environment. Whose insurance responds?
Read your staffing agreement — in most of them, you promised it would be yours. Client agreements routinely make the agency responsible for placed workers’ errors and require the agency to carry technology E&O and cyber accordingly. A staffing package built for clerical placements does not survive contact with an IT bench, because the claims are technology claims arriving through a staffing contract.
Our placed staff are W-2 with us but work under client direction. Who has the employment exposure?
Both of you, which is the trap. Co-employment means a discrimination or wage claim from a placed worker can name the agency and the client together, and staffing agreements usually oblige the agency to defend. Employment practices liability sized for the bench — not the internal staff count — is what answers, and it is the line staffing firms most often under-buy.
Why is workers compensation such a problem for staffing agencies?
Because the premium follows the work, not the office. An agency whose placements sit at desks pays desk rates; the day it places a field technician, the class code and the rate change — and if the audit finds the change first, it arrives as a bill. We class the placements correctly up front and revisit at renewal, which is cheaper than being corrected.
Clients ask for our certificate before every placement. Can that be faster?
Yes — this is a service problem disguised as an insurance one. We keep your certificate current and issue holder-specific copies on request, usually same-day, so a placement never waits on paper. If a client’s exhibit names limits above your program, that is a conversation to have before signature, and we would rather have it with you than after the claim.