FILE - Entrepreneurship, sensibly insured

• Starting business well-insured
• Buying or renting a commercial building: what should you pay attention to?
• Need a commercial vehicle? Consider definitely consider this
• How to protect your equipment and your data from theft?
• Hiring employees for the first time, here's how to do it
• When do you turn your sole proprietorship into a corporation?
• Selling or leaving your business
• Retiring as an entrepreneur: think about it early

Starting business well-insured

Denisha has enjoyed working in the sales department of a well-known retailer for years, but can no longer ignore the entrepreneurial bug that has been itching for several years. She jumped into the deep end and started her own business: on her webshop with unique shoes, she could express her passion for fashion and her entrepreneurial spirit.

Of course Denisha does not step into her adventure unthinkingly. She may have experience with sales, but she knows that entrepreneurship involves a lot of things in which she is not very familiar. Insurance for example, what about that?

Buckle up! You're going for your own business. And whether you start out as a freelancer-right out of college or first gained extensive experience in the corporate world, whether you open a store or start offering a service, whether you start out on your own or take over a running business ... you are now an entrepreneur. An exciting world opens up before you, in every possible way. When it comes to your insurance, we are of course here to help you on your way .

Insurance for startup entrepreneurs

If you start a sole proprietorship or a partnership, you are required by law to take out certain insurance policies. Exactly which ones depend on what your business does.

In addition, some non-mandatory insurances are very interesting. We list the most important ones for you here.

These insurances are mandatory for your company:

• A health insurance is mandatory for anyone residing in Belgium, private or business.

• Does your company employ employees? Then work accident insurance is also a must-have.

• You need auto insurance for any commercial vehicle, only the 'civil liability auto and van' section is required by law.

• If your business is located in a publicly accessible building of more than 1,000 square feet, you must also purchase civil liability fire & explosion insurance.

• If you have a regulated profession, such as doctor or lawyer, you need professional liability insurance.

• Ten-year liability insurance is mandatory for architects and contractors.

Beyond that, we encourage you to consider these insurances:

• Company civil liability insurance: it compensates third parties if your company causes them damage in any way. For example, when a customer misses a deadline due to a mistake made by your employee, or when your company builds a garden and accidentally damages a house with an excavator.
• An interesting extension can be product liability insurance. This covers damages to third parties after the performance of your service or delivery of your product.
• An insurance guaranteed income maintains your income when you are disabled for a while, through a monthly allowance on top of the amount the health insurance fund pays you.

• Insurance for directors' liability
  

• Insurance for business losses

Are you unsure what insurance is needed and useful for you right now? Stop by , we'll help you see the forest for the trees.

And have you thought about what becoming self-employed means for your personal life? Find out what to consider here.

Buying or renting a commercial building: what should you pay attention to?

Denisha's webshop is running well. Customers from home and abroad are quickly able to savor her selection of exclusive shoes, so she easily meets her set targets. The spare room she sacrificed for stock quickly became too small, meanwhile the car had to give up its place in the garage.

At the same time, Denisha is beginning to dream of a permanent physical store. Last summer she had a pop-up in Antwerp and it turned an amazing turnover ...

Is it time to look out for business premises? A place of her own for her business, with a store as well as a storage space for what she sells online?

Buy or rent, which do you do best?

Your home as a business building

As a start-up self-employed person or sole proprietor, you can often just work from home. In that case, consider bringing in some of the costs that this entails as professional expenses: heating, electricity, internet connection, your cell phone subscription, computer ... A percentage of your fire insurance premium is also included, especially if, like Denisha, you converted your guest room into your work space.

Advantages of owning your own business premises

Typically, it is more financially beneficial to buy a building for your business than to rent one, because a monthly rental amount is often higher than the monthly cost of an investment loan for a similar property. Moreover, a company-owned building generally increases in value over the years. This immediately makes it a long-term investment: an investment in your retirement therefore.

Renting a building for your business

If you do not plan to stay in the same building for at least a decade, for example, because your business will still grow significantly, renting is more interesting than buying. This way you (as a starter) keep more budget free to invest in other things. Also when the prices of business premises are very high, renting can be temporarily more advantageous. Are you looking for a building in a specific location, such as a popular shopping street? Then sometimes you have no option but to rent, until the day a property comes up for sale.

In general, once your business is growing stably, chances are that owning your own premises will be more financially attractive than renting.

Purchasing the right business property step by step

Find out what your business needs

What does your business look like today and how do you expect it to evolve? How much space is needed, how easily accessible should the building be, do you need parking, does the appearance of the building matter? List it all and consider what has priority for you. In addition, state what budget your company can spend on a building.

Property on the eye? Know what you're buying!

Take someone knowledgeable to evaluate the commercial property before you buy it (just like when you buy a house as a private individual ). Check the condition of the building so that you can estimate what costs may crop up in the coming years.

Also check whether you will be allowed to do with your new commercial building what you intend to do with it. Use the regional plan to check what zoning the plot has. Provisions of a Special Development Plan (BPA) or a Spatial Implementation Plan (RUP) may also limit what you can do on that site. And do you need any other permits?

Finally, a property in a business park is important that you get the mandatory soil certificate from the seller. This way you will know if the soil may be contaminated and if you need to remediate it before you can establish your business there.

Insure your commercial building

Of course your commercial building - whether you buy or rent it - needs solid fire insurance . It protects your company against fire, water damage, damage caused by natural disasters ... and often also against burglary and theft.

An interesting step further is business interruption insurance, which assures you of an income if it is lost due to material damage. With Multi-risk insurance or Patrimony insurance, you are even more secure. Such a policy also covers, among other things, damage to your movable and immovable property due to malicious damage (e.g. vandalism to your vending machine), a collision with a third-party vehicle and - if you choose - loss of income due to, for example, road works or theft of your payment system.

Need a commercial vehicle? Be sure to consider this

As a painter, Filip cannot do without his van. But yesterday it broke down, fortunately only in the evening after work. You can imagine the hassle: waiting for the breakdown service, having it towed to the garage ... His neighbor Denisha was waiting for him in vain for their weekly padel moment.

Fortunately, this morning the mechanic got Philip's van running again quite smoothly. He did add, however, that the gearbox is also gradually coming to the end of its rope. Filip realizes that it is time to look for a more reliable one.

Chances are, without a car or van, you won't be able to do your self-employment job properly. So you're not going to rush into choosing one. But what all should you think about when choosing a new commercial vehicle?

Buy or lease?

Buying a vehicle is generally more economical, but it does mean you have to pay the full purchase price at once. You also have to write off a purchased vehicle for accounting purposes. When you lease a car or light truck, you simply include the lease invoices as expenses in your accounting records.

Tax deductibility

As a self-employed person with a partnership or as a sole proprietor, you can tax deduct part of your car expenses . Check carefully with your accountant what percentage that is in your case, it will help you choose the best suited car or van.

Consider electric

By the end of 2026, only cars that do not emit greenhouse gases will be 100% tax deductible for businesses. Read this blog on electric company cars and find out how the tax regime for green company cars will evolve in the coming years.

Protect your commercial vehicle

Without a car or light truck, your job becomes a lot more difficult. So we recommend that you insure those extra and go beyond the mandatory car insurance .

Definitely consider:

• An omnium insurance
  Whether you take out a partial comprehensive or a full comprehensive, you are insured for broken car windows, damage caused by burglary, natural disasters (e.g. hail) and animals (e.g. gnawing martens). A full omnium (full omnium) insures almost all possible damage, even if you yourself are liable for it.
• Transported goods insurance
  This policy covers damage and possible theft of the contents of your van, such as your work equipment or goods to be delivered. In this article you will read a series of tips to protect your van from theft .

How to protect your equipment and your data from theft?

For his painting work, Filip needs a lot of equipment: a supply of paint in all the colors of the rainbow, ladders and scaffolding, paint rollers and brushes, putty material ... Together with his indispensable van, these are safely stored in the warehouse next to his house.

Now I do ... About three years ago, a less honest "entrepreneur" in the area also needed a high ladder. Not to paint a high gutter in a new color, but to break into a nearby villa district through a skylight. Because of the ladder theft, Filip had to tell some customers, with redness on his cheeks, that their peeling gutter would remain unpainted for another week.

Even before he had a new ladder, he took out theft insurance.

Year after year, your business grows. And the contents of your business building, the appliances and machinery you need, your supplies ... they all grow with you. Not to mention the amount of data you all collect over the years. It seems too much to list, but can you spare it? Probably not, so make sure everything is well protected.

Protecting equipment with theft insurance

A theft insurance for your business is property damage insurance. That means it intervenes when you suffer damage to your company's property. It also compensates you for the loss of income caused by that damage.

Protecting data from cybercrime

Did you know that 4 in 10 SMEs have already fallen victim to cybercrime? Outsmart online burglars and protect your virtual property, too. We collected a lot of tips and tricks in this article .

Hiring employees for the first time, here's how to do it

Emma started working as an independent graphic designer after her studies. And she does it so well that clients constantly recommend her to their acquaintances. After a few years, Emma noticed that she increasingly had to keep clients waiting. She regularly works night after night to get everything done. She can't go on like this; she is in danger of losing the joy of her work.

Emma consults with her scout friend Filip, who, as a painter, has had a few employees for some time. What is it like to suddenly manage someone? What is involved when you hire an employee? And the costs, how do you stay on top of them?

Your enterprise is running on wheels. Great! But you feel the work is getting too hard to keep doing it on your own. You're all set to bring in a colleague. But of course, you first weigh the advantages of doing so against the disadvantages.

Be sure to list these things for yourself:

Personnel costs?

In addition to your employee's gross salary or wages, you also have to pay an employer's social contribution. If you engage a social secretariat to take care of the red tape for you, you have to expect additional costs there as well.

Administrative obligations?

Once you have one employee, you must register as an employer with the NSSO (National Social Security Office) and file a declaration of employment. You must also join a child benefit fund and an external service for prevention and protection at work.

Employment contract and employment regulations?

You are required to prepare and provide these documents to your employee(s) in addition to your other obligations to your employees.

Insuring your employees: more than work accident insurance

• A work accident insurance policy is mandatory once you have employees. This policy covers the financial consequences of a workplace accident: an accident while at work - including while telecommuting - or on the way to and from the company.
• Other employee insurances are not compulsory, but they are an interesting fringe benefit for your employees. Consider, for example, group insurance (which builds up a supplementary pension for them) or hospitalization insurance .

When do you turn your sole proprietorship into a corporation?

As she plans to hire an employee and quietly thinks about having her own office, Emma wonders aloud if it is also time to convert her sole proprietorship into a corporation. Her business is growing over her person and she wants a clearer separation between her work and personal life. She doesn't want to think about saddling her family with debt because of a forgetfulness while working.

When your sole proprietorship grows, you probably get to the point where you would do well to convert it into a corporation. By doing so, you limit your personal liability. And it often has tax advantages, too. But don't take that step too soon, because a partnership also involves additional costs and administration.

Why set up a corporation?

Less personal liability

If you have a sole proprietorship, you have unlimited personal liability for any damages you cause to others. As a director of a company, things are different, especially if you have director's liability insurance . This protects you against claims from third parties who hold you liable for your mistakes as a director.

Separate finances

Because your corporation is a separate legal entity, it has its own financial assets separate from your private property. This means that creditors cannot touch your private property as easily as if your business were a sole proprietorship.

Lower taxes

As a sole proprietorship, you pay higher taxes on your profits than as a partnership. So as soon as those profits are high enough, it becomes fiscally interesting to switch to a corporation. Consider carefully whether this financial advantage outweighs the higher formation costs.

Collaborating with business partners

Do you work firmly with other entrepreneurs? Then you would do well to formalize that collaboration, because good agreements make good friends. This can be done, for example, by setting up a company together.

Easier to let over

Is your retirement approaching or do you want to be less involved with your business for some other reason? Then you can sell a partnership to others step by step, share by share. This is not possible with a sole proprietorship: your business coincides with you as a person and can only be sold as a whole.

Selling or leaving your business

Filip is approaching 60 and his knees are increasingly troubled. Although he still enjoys his work as a painter every day, physically it is taking its toll. His retirement is not yet set for tomorrow, but Filip is quietly thinking about rolling out. Especially since his loyal employee Mehdi expressed interest in taking over the business one day.

Mehdi shares Philip's love of the trade and his eye for precision; he would be THE cut-out successor. Perhaps there is a way to take over incrementally? Filip resolves to find out about his options ahead of time.

Are you throwing it over the edge? Whether you're retiring, starting a new business or doing something completely new, you want the business you've built to land on its feet. You can hand over your business all at once, or sell it one step at a time.

Issuing shares

When you offer shares of your company for sale, part of it becomes the property of others. This gives you personally the financial clout to invest your resources in something else.

Issuing stock can also be done to give your company an injection of capital. Additional investors ensure that your company is financially strong to take the next steps.

Leaving your company

There are many aspects involved in a business transfer. From legal to tax and everything in between. The emotional aspects should not be underestimated either. So we recommend that you take ample time to prepare for the sale of your business.

• Decide what you want for yourself and inform yourself about the options. Do you want to stay involved in the business after the acquisition? Will your children step into the business? What about taxes on the capital gains from the sale? Will you leave the business as a trading fund or sell it in shares?
  

• Make a plan for the business transfer. Decide on the sale value of your business, make a SWOT analysis of the business so you are prepared to go to market prepared, determine what you want to screen potential acquirers for, list what concrete steps you need to take before you can effectively hand over the business, ...
  

• Put the acquisition in motion. Now your business is really for sale. Once you have found a buyer, sign the necessary contracts. Make proper arrangements with that person about the extent to which you will remain involved. Of course, you should also quickly inform your employees, suppliers and customers.

Feel free to come and consult at our office . We will help you consider the right aspects and of course ensure that you are properly insured. Before, during and after the business transfer.

Retiring as an entrepreneur: think about it early

Business is booming at Denisha. In recent years, she can record a fine profit. Even though she is still under forty, she decides to start building for retirement in the new fiscal year. When she was still employed, she was already doing retirement savings. But she knows that as a self-employed person she will have a lower statutory pension. And she also knows that her passion for exclusive shoes will not disappear the day she retires... Time to put some more aside for later!

No matter how passionate you are about business, as the manager of a company or sole proprietorship, you had better start thinking about retirement even earlier than if you were an employee. Because the average statutory pension for the self-employed is a lot lower than for employees.

Saving for your retirement

What statutory pension you will receive depends on how many years you have worked, the income you have during your career and your family situation. On mypension.be you can make a detailed calculation of the amount you can expect to receive.

But whatever that amount is, to maintain your standard of living after retirement, it's best to start saving for retirement early. As a self-employed person, you have several options for this, in addition to the classic retirement savings you can do as a private individual .

Free Supplementary Pension for the Self-Employed

This is the most interesting choice fiscally, because you can deduct the amount you save as a professional expense from your income, with a maximum of 8.17% of your professional income. A PSPS is also a kind of life insurance, which pays your dependents an amount should you die before retirement.

A social PSPS goes even further and includes benefits when you become seriously ill or go bankrupt, for example. If you choose this form of retirement savings, then you can deduct a larger portion of what you save each year from your taxes.

POZ or IPT?

As a supplement to a PSPS, you can also take out a POZ or Pension Agreement for the Self-Employed as a sole proprietor. If you have a corporation, an IPT or Individual Pension Commitment is the way for you to collect extra apples to apples for your retirement.

What about your company in retirement?

We recommend that you start thinking about what you want to do with your business a few years before you reach retirement age. Are you going to leave your business or sell it? Then be sure to read these tips .

Even if you decide to stop your business activities completely, it is best to inform yourself well. Here are the first steps:

• Have your business removed from the Crossroads Bank of Enterprises.

• Inform the agencies that collect VAT and social security contributions.

• Do you have employees? If so, give the NSSO a call as well.

An accredited business office can help you get all the paperwork in order.

In addition, it is useful to examine whether you still need insurance after your business stops. Such run-out coverage (also known as posteriority coverage) intervenes when damage occurs after the cessation due to work you previously performed. Stop by to discuss this, if necessary we can prevent you from being held personally liable after retirement and having to pay the full cost.