Your consultant, their systems, your policy. Get the order right.

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, and 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. It is the line nearly every contract names by default.

Without it — The base certificate line on every staffing agreement, before anyone reads the interesting exhibits.

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.

A client requires $10M of cyber and we cannot find it anywhere. Is that even available to a staffing firm?

Yes, and we place it regularly, usually as a $5M primary policy with a $5M excess layer above it. The marketplaces stop far short of the limit, so the tower is built with an underwriter who reads the submission. What that underwriter weighs is how many personal records you hold, what security you run, and, for a firm with no systems of its own, what your client agreements make you responsible for. Get the submission and the website telling the same true story and the limit is available, often for less than the smaller one cost.

How $10M cyber and $5M tech E&O get placed

What does a IT staffing insurance application ask for?

The applications for IT staffing businesses ask about 4 things above all: what is your legal business name and any other names you've operated under; how much of your work is commercial, residential, industrial, municipal, or government; do you have a formal safety and training program; have you ever had a claim or loss under an errors and omissions or liability policy. Have your last five years of claims history from your current insurer, called loss runs and a sample customer contract showing what you agree to do and what the customer agrees to ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week.