Professional indemnity
IT liability cover pays your clients' financial losses from outages, data loss and misconfiguration and fights off excessive claims.
Insurance broker / Business types / IT, media and creative
Insurance for hosting, cloud providers and data centres in Germany
When a host goes down, all its clients go down with it: shops stop selling, practices cannot find appointments, emails do not arrive. On top come risks other IT firms do not have: cooling, emergency power, fire suppression systems and racks full of servers worth as much as a family home. This page explains how to protect all that and what it costs.
The question almost everyone asks first
Does the insurer pay the service credits from my SLA?
Usually not. Flat-rate service credits and contractual penalties for availability are contractual promises and are excluded in almost every tariff. What is insured is statutory compensation when your client demonstrably loses money through a mistake of yours. Word your SLAs so that credits are the only compensation for outages and liability beyond that is capped.
What goes wrong in this trade
- 01
Outage for every client
A faulty hypervisor update or a broken switch takes hundreds of client systems down at once. The claims add up.
- 02
Data loss
A storage cluster fails and replication was incomplete. Recovery, rework and compensation become very expensive.
- 03
Attacks
DDoS, ransomware and hijacked client accounts hit hosts every day. A successful attack is also a liability case towards every client.
- 04
Power and cooling
If the air conditioning fails in summer or the emergency generator does not start, whole rows face overheating and hardware damage.
- 05
Fire and suppression
A fire in a UPS battery is rare but devastating. Even the fire suppression system going off can damage equipment and stop operations.
- 06
Illegal content
Clients store unlawful content on your servers. Cease and desist letters and injunction demands then land with you too.
Compared with other trades, 1 low to 5 high.
The insurance you need
Essential
Cyber insurance
Covers forensics, recovery, reporting duties and your own lost income after an attack.
Strongly advised
Electronic equipment
Insures servers, storage, network equipment and UPS against power surges, overheating, operating errors and extinguishing water.
Business interruption
Pays lost income and the extra cost of a backup data centre and hired equipment after property damage.
Machinery breakdown
Insures air conditioning, emergency generators and cooling equipment against machinery breakdown.
Depends on the business
Business contents
For office, stores and spare parts against fire, escape of water and burglary.
Commercial buildings
If you own the data centre building, it protects it against fire, storm and escape of water.
D&O insurance
For managing directors who are personally responsible for IT security and implementing NIS2.
What it costs: example prices
What counts is turnover, the number and type of clients, the security level, the value of the equipment and the sums chosen. Certifications and good contingency plans noticeably lower the premium.
| Insurance | Example | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| Professional indemnity | Hosting provider with 500,000 euros turnover, 2 million euros cover | around 2,000 to 6,000 euros a year |
| Cyber insurance | Hosting provider with 500,000 euros turnover, 1 million euros cover | around 1,500 to 5,000 euros a year |
| Electronic equipment | Servers, storage and network worth 500,000 euros | around 1,500 to 4,000 euros a year |
| Business interruption | Extra costs and lost income up to six months, added to the electronics policy | around 800 to 2,500 euros a year |
| Machinery breakdown | Cooling and emergency generator worth 300,000 euros | around 600 to 1,500 euros a year |
For comparison: IT liability and cyber cover for a small hosting provider cost about as much a year as the colocation rent for a full rack over six to twelve months.
Guide prices excluding German insurance premium tax, as of September 2026, from our own quoting experience and published tariff examples for IT companies. Larger data centres are priced individually; we obtain the exact quote for you.
Sources of the price examples
Our suggestions: three packages
01
Reseller
For: Web hosting and managed services on third party infrastructure
- Professional indemnity
- Cyber insurance
Together around 2,000 to 5,000 euros a year
Request this package02
Own hardware
For: Hosting provider with its own servers in rented racks
- Professional indemnity
- Cyber insurance
- Electronic equipment
- Business interruption
Together around 6,000 to 15,000 euros a year
Request this package03
Data centre
For: Operator with its own floor space, cooling and emergency power
- Professional indemnity
- Cyber insurance
- Electronic equipment
- Business interruption
- Machinery breakdown
- Commercial buildings
- D&O insurance
Together from around 20,000 euros a year, calculated individually
Request this packageThe worst day in the data centre
Six things that really happen to hosting providers, all on a single hot day in July. Tap through the day and see who pays.
Damage so far€270,000
-
A firmware update on the storage cluster fails. 120 client systems are offline for six hours, and three shops claim lost sales.
-
A DDoS attack with a ransom demand. Mitigation service, forensics and two days of crisis operation.
-
At 36 degrees an air conditioning unit fails and the compressor is finished.
-
Before the backup cooling is running, two racks overheat. Power supplies and hard drives fail.
-
For the repair period you rent servers and floor space in another data centre.
-
A client has lost data after a misconfiguration by your team. Recovery and re-entry of data.
Which package would you have had?
Illustrative amounts before any excess. Whether and how much is paid depends on the policy terms.
Practical tips from your broker
- Cap liability at a fixed amount in your terms and SLAs and exclude indirect losses as far as the law allows.
- Make sure serial losses, meaning one mistake with many injured parties, are not capped at too low a sum.
- Have power surges, overheating, fire suppression systems and extinguishing agents explicitly included in your electronics cover.
- Insure the extra cost of backup equipment and hired devices; it often costs more than the destroyed hardware.
- Check whether the cyber policy also covers outages at providers you depend on, such as your data centre or network carrier.
- Keep contingency plans, off-site backups and certifications up to date; insurers ask about them and set the premium accordingly.
Why NAMMERT for your business
We bundle liability, hardware and downtime
As a broker we align IT liability, cyber, electronics and machinery cover so that no gap remains between the policies.
We know settlement from our own practice
In boat insurance we settle claims ourselves. We know how to document cause, costs and downtime so that the insurer pays promptly.
Several insurers compared
Especially in cyber, terms and underwriting questions vary widely. We collect several quotes and explain the differences.
Family business since 1989
Free of charge for you, as the insurer pays our commission. You reach fixed contacts, even when things are on fire.
Questions and answers
Frequently asked
Which insurance does a hosting provider need?
At least IT liability for losses at clients and cyber insurance for your own costs after attacks. If you run your own hardware, you also need electronics, business interruption and often machinery cover.
What does insurance for a small hosting provider cost?
IT liability and cyber together start at around 2,000 euros a year. With your own hardware and downtime cover, 6,000 to 15,000 euros is usual.
Am I covered if a client hosts illegal content?
Defence against injunction and damages claims is included in many IT liability tariffs. What matters is that you check reports promptly and act.
Does electronics insurance pay for overheating?
Only if overheating and failure of the cooling system are included. That is not standard everywhere and belongs in the policy.
Do I have to comply with NIS2?
Yes, if you reach the thresholds as a cloud, data centre or hosting service. Management is then liable for security measures, which is why D&O cover makes sense.
Who pays if my colocation provider fails?
Towards your clients you are liable first. Whether you can take recourse depends on your contract with the provider; a suitable cyber policy can cover your own lost income.
NAMMERT insurance broker
Request quotes for Hosting
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We will be in touch within one working day. If it is urgent: +49 3375 29 12 77.
Related trades
Do I need IT liability and cyber insurance, or is one enough?
Are we liable if our customers have no internet for a day because of a fault?
Who pays if my client receives a cease and desist letter over an image on the website?
Official classification
This page covers the following classes of the German WZ 2025 (identical to NACE at four digits):
- 63.10 Datenverarbeitung, Hosting und damit verbundene Tätigkeiten
- 63.91 Web-Suchportale
- 63.92 Erbringung von sonstigen Informationsdienstleistungen
Source: Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Destatis), WZ 2025. All business types
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