What insurance does a virtual assistant need?
There's no one-size answer. The right mix depends on how you work, who you work for, and what your contracts ask for. These are the coverages a virtual assistant typically looks at first:
Professional liability
The core coverage for admin and support work: claims that a missed deadline, scheduling error, or data mistake cost a client money, with limits up to $1,000,000 per claim typically available.
Cyber liability
Client email, financial, and account logins routinely pass through your hands, and this addresses response costs if that access is exposed or misused.
General liability
What client contracts and coworking leases ask for, with the $1,000,000 per-occurrence limit procurement teams typically request.
Coverage always depends on your specific situation. The fastest way to see what fits is to get a quote and review your options.
What does it protect against?
The risks that matter aren't abstract. They're the everyday accidents of the work. A few scenarios that turn into real claims:
A scheduling error costs the client an opportunity
You manage a client's calendar and accidentally double-book their biggest meeting of the quarter, or miss the deadline for submitting their conference registration entirely. The client says the mistake cost them money, and that is the core professional liability claim for admin work.
Client account credentials are exposed
You hold logins to a client's email, social accounts, or invoicing software to do your job, and a phished password or a stolen laptop exposes them. Cyber liability is built for the breach response costs and third-party claims that follow.
A data entry mistake creates a financial error
You enter the wrong amount into a client's invoicing platform, or misroute a payment while managing their books. Errors in the deliverable itself, not an accident, are what professional liability is designed to respond to.
A client contract requires proof you don't have yet
A new retainer client's onboarding paperwork asks for a certificate of insurance before access to their systems is granted. For many virtual assistants, the first policy gets bought because a contract already on the table required it.
Certificates of insurance
For virtual assistants, the certificate-of-insurance request arrives with a bigger client's onboarding paperwork: procurement teams routinely require proof of professional liability and general liability at stated limits before account access is granted, and cyber is increasingly part of that ask. Olli's general liability policies include instant certificates, so onboarding doesn't stall on proof.
New to certificates? Start with our guide to the certificate of insurance: what's on one, who asks for it, and how to provide yours.