Business insurance in Portugal: workers' compensation, liability and the rest

Workers’ compensation: the one every employer must have

Lei n.º 98/2009 obliges every employer to transfer to an authorised insurer its liability for workplace accidents (acidentes de trabalho) — injuries at work or on the way to and from it — for every employee, full-time, part-time, temporary or domestic. The policy pays medical care, salary compensation during incapacity, pensions for permanent incapacity or death, and is priced on the payroll and the activity’s risk class. Hiring without it is an offence and leaves the employer liable for the whole cost of an accident.

Self-employed workers must insure themselves against workplace accidents under the same law (a seguro de acidentes de trabalho para trabalhadores independentes), on a declared income; an employee who also invoices on the side needs one for that activity.

• Workplace accidents: compulsory for every employer and every self-employed worker (Lei 98/2009)
• Professional liability: compulsory for regulated activities — lawyers, estate agents, travel agencies, construction, health professionals among them
• Priced on payroll: the accident premium follows declared salaries
• Optional: property, general liability, business interruption, cyber, D&O

Professional liability where the law requires it

Portugal imposes civil-liability insurance on a range of regulated activities as a condition of the licence: real-estate agents (Lei n.º 15/2013 — the IMPIC checks the policy with the licence), lawyers (through the Bar’s collective policy plus individual excess cover), solicitadores, travel agencies, construction contractors and architects and engineers on projects, health professionals in private practice, insurance intermediaries, security companies, driving schools and others. The regulator of each activity states the minimum sum insured; the office checks it when a client applies for the licence.

The optional covers that businesses actually buy

• Property multi-risk for premises, stock and equipment (fire, water, theft, storms, electrical damage), often with business interruption;
• General liability for damage to third parties — customers on the premises, products, operations;
• Cyber cover for data breaches and ransomware, increasingly required by clients and by the GDPR risk;
• Directors’ and officers’ liability for managers of larger companies;
• Group health for employees, a common benefit in technology and services firms and a lever for recruitment;
• Vehicle fleets under a single motor policy with the compulsory 6,45 M€ / 1,3 M€ liability minimum;
• Credit insurance for exporters.

Setting it up

Workers’ compensation is contracted when the first employee is registered with Segurança Social — the insurer needs the company’s NIPC, the CAE codes, the payroll estimate and the list of employees with their NISS. Professional-liability policies are contracted before the licence application. Access Portugal’s intermediaries quote all covers in one package for new companies and review them yearly against the payroll and turnover actually declared.

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