Does Your iOS Contractor Have Professional Insurance? (They Should.)

When a CTO evaluates an iOS contractor, the conversation usually revolves around technical capabilities: SwiftUI experience, architecture patterns, Swift 6 concurrency, CI/CD pipelines. All of that matters. But there's one question many forget to ask — and it's the one that matters most when things go wrong:

What happens if your contractor makes a mistake that costs your company money?

I'm not talking about a cosmetic glitch on a button. I'm talking about real scenarios: a deployment that takes down the payment system in production for hours. A data breach that triggers a GDPR investigation. A delivery delay that blocks a commercial launch. A business logic error that generates incorrect charges for thousands of users.

These scenarios aren't hypothetical. They happen to competent teams with mature processes. And when they do, the question isn't whether someone is responsible — it's who absorbs the cost.

The Reality of the Contractor Market

I've spent over 7 years as an iOS contractor on enterprise projects: Zara, Banco Santander, Juegos ONCE, AXA, El País. In my experience, serious enterprise clients always require proof of professional insurance. It's a contractual requirement, not a suggestion.

Yet most iOS freelancers and small development consultancies don't carry professional indemnity insurance. Some don't know it exists. Others consider it an unnecessary expense. And some simply hope nothing goes wrong.

That's a problem for you as a client, because it means that if something does go wrong, your only recourse is legal action against an individual or a micro-company with limited resources. Good luck recovering the cost of a production incident that affected millions of users.

Why AtalayaSoft Carries Professional Insurance

When we founded AtalayaSoft, one of our first decisions was to get serious professional indemnity coverage. Not because the law requires it (in Estonia, where we're registered, it's not mandatory for IT companies), but because it's the right thing to do when you work on apps that handle sensitive data, process payments, or serve millions of users.

At AtalayaSoft we work through Malt, and before taking out the exali policy we had an AXA policy through Malt. It worked, but it was generic across all freelance professions and not specifically designed for the IT sector. When we set up the company, I looked for something specific to the IT and digital sector in Europe.

We chose exali, a German insurer specialising in digital professions, backed by Markel Insurance SE, an international specialist insurer for IT risks. This isn't a generic freelancer policy: it's designed specifically for the real risks that software development generates.

What Our Policy Covers

Our insurance has two main components:

Financial Loss Insurance: €500,000

Covers economic losses our work may cause to a client. This includes:

• Programming errors. A bug that causes direct financial loss to the client.
• Faulty consulting. If we recommend an architecture or technology that results in problems.
• Delivery delays. If a delay on our end causes losses to the client (lost profits, wasted expenditure).
• Data protection violations. If an error on our part leads to a data breach under the GDPR.
• Breaches of confidentiality. If sensitive client information is leaked.
• Malware transmission. If we unintentionally distribute malicious code.
• Business interruptions at third parties. If our work causes a disruption in the client's systems.

General Liability Insurance: €2,000,000

Covers physical injury or property damage to third parties related to our professional activity.

Details That Matter

Several aspects of our policy go beyond the basics:

• Worldwide coverage. We work with clients across Spain, Europe, and beyond. The policy covers claims in any jurisdiction.
• Triple aggregation. The insured sum is tripled in aggregate, meaning greater protection against multiple incidents.
• Completed projects (retroactive cover). It doesn't just cover ongoing work. If a bug surfaces in a project we delivered two years ago, the policy covers it. This is critical, because software problems often don't manifest until months or years after delivery.
• All-risk principle. The policy works on an all-risk basis: it covers any professional risk without needing to enumerate every possible scenario. If it's not explicitly excluded, it's covered.
• Legal defence included. If a claim is unjustified, the insurer handles the legal defence at their own cost. This includes lawyers, court costs, and expert witnesses.

What a CTO Should Ask Before Hiring a Contractor

If you're integrating a contractor into your iOS development team, especially on an enterprise project, these are the insurance questions you should be asking:

1. Do you have active professional indemnity insurance?
Not "I'm thinking about getting it." Not "my previous company had it." Active, with a current and verifiable policy.

2. What's the insured sum?
€50,000 in coverage might suffice for a small project, but if your app has millions of users and processes payments, you need significant figures. Enterprise contracts typically require between €250,000 and €1,000,000 as a minimum.

3. Does it cover losses from delivery delays?
Many generic policies don't. If a contractor's delay blocks your launch, you want that covered.

4. Does it include GDPR violation coverage?
In Europe, this isn't optional. If your contractor handles personal data (and in a mobile app, they almost always do), a data breach can trigger fines of up to 4% of your company's annual turnover. Your contractor should have specific coverage.

5. Does it have retroactive cover for completed projects?
Software doesn't expire when it's delivered. Bugs can surface years later. A policy without retroactive cover leaves you exposed to issues in code the contractor wrote long ago.

6. Can I independently verify the coverage?
A serious professional should be able to provide an insurance certificate or a verifiable link. Don't settle for "yes, I have insurance."

Our Verifiable Coverage Seal

At AtalayaSoft, we believe in transparency. That's why our insurance is publicly verifiable. Any current or potential client can check our coverage directly on the exali website:

Verify AtalayaSoft's coverage on exali →

There you can verify the insurer (Markel Insurance SE), insured sums, geographic scope, and policy validity. No intermediaries, no need to ask us for anything. It's a level of transparency that, frankly, few contractors offer.

It's Not an Expense: It's a Signal

Having professional insurance isn't just financial protection. It's a signal of how a contractor operates.

A contractor without insurance is implicitly telling you they haven't thought about what happens when things go wrong. Or they've thought about it and decided the risk is yours to bear.

A contractor with serious professional coverage is telling you they understand the risks of enterprise development, they've invested in mitigating them, and if something goes wrong, there's real backing behind them.

When you're working on apps with millions of users, with financial data, health information, or economic transactions, that matters.

Conclusion

Professional indemnity insurance isn't a glamorous topic. It doesn't come up at Swift meetups or in architecture threads on social media. But it's one of the most tangible differences between a freelancer working project to project and a professional contractor built for enterprise environments.

At AtalayaSoft, we carry €500,000 in financial loss coverage and €2,000,000 in general liability, with an all-risk policy, worldwide coverage, and unlimited retroactivity, backed by Markel Insurance SE. And you can verify it yourself.

Next time you evaluate an iOS contractor, ask the question. You'll be surprised how many don't have an answer.

Looking for an iOS contractor with enterprise experience and verifiable professional coverage? At AtalayaSoft, we integrate into your team with the guarantees your project needs. Let's talk →