Advice on business liability and legal expenses insurance

Questioner

I have a VOF in E-commerce. We want to apply for a business liability and legal expenses insurance, but that does not work because the products come from China. The products we sell are breast pumps and Balance boards. Breast pumps are often used by mothers with newborn babies to extract milk from the breast, so that they can give the milk to the child at a later time. A Balance board is actually just a wooden plank, but made in such a way that it is used as a children's toy. In the attachment I will send an example photo of the products so that you have an idea of ​​the product. Our products have the correct certificates to sell in the Netherlands. For the time being, we cannot go to any insurance company. The insurance companies indicate that they can only insure the products if we have an importer from Europe. The other option they gave was to draw up a general condition whereby we can already cover ourselves. We would like advice about our situation with the best options. I would like to thank you in advance and we look forward to hearing from you. Yours sincerely,

Lawyer

Excluding liability via the general terms and conditions is only possible to a certain extent, as it is often not possible to exclude liability based on consumer law. The law clearly regulates when something falls under the liability of a supplier/factory or seller. In addition, as an importer you are liable for the quality and safety standards of the imported products. Because this is difficult to check, insurers probably ask for a European importer. In this way, they want to limit the risks as much as possible. There may be options where certain components can be insured, such as delivery problems, inventory, etc., and where the general terms and conditions exclude as much as possible (as mentioned, you often cannot avoid mandatory provisions). Please feel free to contact me to discuss your issue further or if you have any questions.