The right program for the round you're in.
Buying too much too early wastes capital. Buying too late blocks a contract or a financing. Here is what actually changes at each stage.
Broker response
Same business day
Answered by a broker, in writing.
Quote turnaround
3–10 business days
From a complete submission to terms in hand.
Certificates
Same day
Standard requests issued without an email chain.
Renewal process
Begins 90 days out
Not the week before your policy expires.
What actually goes wrong at companies like yours
Not a generic risk list. These are the exposures underwriters ask about and the ones that produce claims.
Term sheet requirements
Investor rights agreements routinely require D&O before closing.
First enterprise contract
The first serious MSA usually forces E&O, cyber, GL, and workers' comp all at once.
Rapid multi-state hiring
Each new state is a workers' comp registration and an employment law footprint.
Down rounds and restructuring
The highest-risk moment for D&O claims is a financing that disappoints someone.
M&A and tail coverage
Run-off policies get negotiated into purchase agreements. Plan them before diligence.
Capital efficiency
Premium is real burn. Program design should match stage, not aspiration.
What we typically place
A starting structure for venture-backed startups. Your contracts, data footprint and headcount move it — which is exactly what the submission is for.
Build your programmeA stage-by-stage sequence
Pre-seed: workers' compensation once you have employees, and not much else. If you're pre-revenue and pre-institutional, most of the market's products are solving problems you don't have yet.
Seed: D&O if you took institutional money or added a board seat. Cyber and E&O if you have paying customers. General liability if you signed a lease.
Series A: the full core program — E&O and cyber at $2M, D&O at $2M–$3M, EPLI, workers' comp across every state, GL, and hired and non-owned auto. This is the round where insurance stops being optional and starts being infrastructure.
Series B and beyond: limits scale with contract requirements and headcount, umbrella and excess layers appear, and program design shifts from 'do we comply' to 'what would actually hurt us.'
What your customers will ask you to carry
The limits that show up most often in insurance exhibits for venture-backed startups. Send us the exhibit before you sign and we'll tell you whether you comply, what compliance costs, and what is worth negotiating.
| Requirement | Typical ask |
|---|---|
| D&O | $1M – $5M depending on round |
| Technology E&O + cyber | $1M – $5M |
| General liability | $1M / $2M |
| Workers' compensation | Statutory + $1M EL |
| EPLI | $1M |
Venture-backed startups, answered
Anything else, send it to a broker and get a written answer within the business day.
Typically two to four business days with a complete submission — financing documents, cap table summary, board list, and financials. We can usually get a quote in hand before your closing call.
It varies too much with revenue, headcount, data, and state footprint to quote responsibly on a web page. What we will do is give you a real indication within a business day of a completed intake, and show you the tradeoffs between limit and premium rather than a single number.
Get a programme built for venture-backed startups.
Tell us about the business once. A broker reviews it the same day and comes back with a plan, a timeline and what we need to take it to market.