Freelancer Proof of PLI

[indyld]

Right, it's that time of year again when my inbox overflows with the "We notice from our records that we do not have a copy of your current insurance details on file" contacts from the four corners of the world.

 

As a busy freelancer, I have decided on a new personal policy regarding these requests and present it here on the BR as food for thought for both freelancers and companies alike. Here's the deal:

 

Many of the companies that pester me to fax and email insurance paperwork on what seems like a regular basis (surely it's only once a year, but it seems like more) I have never worked for. The rest I have hardly ever worked for. Most I will probably never work for.

 

The reason that we engage in this correspondence is that sometime in the past, someone talked to someone, a phone call happened and I ended up on a freelancer database. Hey, I still hold out hope that one day we can work together. But the last contact I had with the company (and tons of others) was a similar one - about insurance details.

 

I realise that companies like to keep their house in order and I have no objection to proffering said insurance details as part of normal business transactions. But this new fashion of administrators trolling databases and firing off emails to unwary freelancers is now starting to take up too much of my time and I ain't seeing a return on it.

 

So, my new policy is that I will gladly send companies all the details they desire on reciept of a booking for my services (perhaps, who knows an actual PO).

 

As part of genuine business dealings, I feel that the time spent scanning, faxing, attaching and cover noting is well spent. If it's just part of some administraters job creation scheme to keep them off Facebook for 5 minutes, I afraid I'm out. It is my responsiblity to subcontract in a manner that complies with any contract that I may have with the company and this includes keeping my insurance current.

 

Like I say, book me and I will send the paperwork over by return. Until then......

 

What does everyone else feel about this trend?

 

(Funnily enough, most companies that subcontract me on a regular basis all seem to be too busy doing other things to keep hassling me about cover notes 24 seconds after the anniversary has passed. Perhaps they start with those freelancers on the "never worked with list" first ;-)

[Guest lightnix]

I understand totally where you're coming from, but...

 

So, my new policy is that I will gladly send companies all the details they desire on reciept of a booking for my services (perhaps, who knows an actual PO).

What will you do, if they turn around and say, "We don't have the time to waste, on booking people who might or might not have PLI. If we don't have an up-to-date record of your PLI on file, then we're just not going to call you again." ???

 

Maybe, on renewing your PLI each year, you should just do a round robin e-mail to all the companies on your database, with a copy of the details; plus a note to say that further copies can be supplied, in return for a small admin fee... :huh:

[johnlinford]

While I take your point, when I renewed my PLI a few months ago my insurance broker was more than happy to send over a PDF of all the documentation. Saves a lot of the hassle.

[RichardFoster]

I can understand your frustration. It looks like you're suffering from companies not knowing how to deal with databases. It may be worth replying to the requests from those you've never worked for by asking them to filter out people who've not worked for them in the last year. You could still be on a database then, without hassle from those not using you. Even on short notice jobs, it's not difficult to get PLI details from most freelancers so I don't see why they'd have a problem with this.

 

The companies concerned are probably putting a lot of effort into database solutions to segregate customers so it should be an easy job to apply this to freelancers.

 

It's fascinating that when we supply to other companies as subcontractors, we're very rarely asked for PLI details. It's just assumed that as a company we will have PLI in place. Insurance companies seem to see freelancers as a much higher risk than other companies. Perhaps this will change in time with the regular checks now being made.

[indyld]

What will you do, if they turn around and say, "We don't have the time to waste, on booking people who might or might not have PLI. If we don't have an up-to-date record of your PLI on file, then we're just not going to call you again." ???

 

 

The official line of many of these companies is "If you aren't up to date on the database, you are out of the picture as a freelancer for us". I totally understand this but:

 

If you have no intention of booking me, let's not all waste our time with pointless emails - I, like many people I'm sure, have to deal with hundreds of emails a day. We might not be wasting paper, but we are wasting time that could be spent helping the economy be more productive.

 

But this isn't all about PDF attachments. The situation is an indicator of the relationship that some companies assume when dealing with freelancers and it's something that has come up before. It's also a subject I happen to feel pretty strongly about.

 

Companies that treat freelancers as casual labour, to be told to toe the line or no workie-workie for you matey, are what's wrong with parts of this business.

 

Apparently, companies are allowed to have "systems" "proceedures" and "company policies" (some kind of rules that you are required to go along with) that make their administration easier but not freelancers. Has anyone seen a "Freelancer Agreement" drawn up by the freelancer? If they have, has it made the slightest difference to the business relationship?

 

Luckily, there are companies in the world who treat freelancers as genuine subcontracting assets to their business and not disposable items. They want to book YOU for their next gig because of a known level of professionalism and commitment to their cause. With any luck, their client has asked for you specifally.

 

The fact that these companies are still around is good news because if the flexible labour market is going even further down the former route then it really is time to get out (again, I know your position on this, Nick - ** laughs out loud **). The argument about "buying power" only goes so far until there is no one left freelancing who is worth having - bring on the eastern european fruit pickers.

 

In the past, I have asked a number of big companies to remove me from their database for a number of different reasons all to do with administration/freelancer relationships and not whether I liked their gigs or their payment schedule (Hell, I just tell those ones I'm busy)

 

Rant over (for now)

 

Edit to add: Thinking about it, none of my real clients would ever say "If you aren't up to date on the database, we'll stop calling" because this would be unproductive for them. So, the only companies who "strike you from the record" are ones that don't know/value your work.

[TomHoward]

I have to hold my hands up and admit to writing an Access system to do this for a major civil engineering company - although it wasn't in the entertainment industry, it was to keep insurance records for haulage subcontractors, and keep product liability insurance records for suppliers. I was drafted in as a temp to covert a mountain of paper files into a database, and it turned out about 75% of the 5000 or so records were out of date.

 

We fired off a letter to all the outdated suppliers (I was working under instruction), or which probably 10-15% or so were active suppliers, the rest were mostly lapsed local suppliers from jobs in remote parts of the country, and got a fair amount of angry letters and phone calls back saying that we hadn't used them for years, and that they either were begrudgingly supplying details or wouldn't be supplying details.

 

Lapsed suppliers that didn't supply details were marked as inactive after two or three letters (over a peroid of months, not a week after each other) and were no longer contacted. They were also unmarked as an 'Approved Supplier' and could not be used by the company until the info was supplied.

 

In my opinion there could probably be two ways to deal with this; either supply the details by the most efficient method, but attach a covering letter to each copy asking the company to review their use of your services, and whether it is worth your (and their) time exchanging details again every 12 months until such time as they are likely to use your services again. The other option (which I also experienced) would be to take it as an opportunity to ram your services down their neck - and return the certificiates along with a covering letter detailing your recent work, upcoming projects, portfolios etc. A lot of the suppliers we hadn't used for a while used to send back an armful of brochures which in some cases did result in them either moving up the pile, or being considered for other services than they were initially marked for on the database.

[indyld]

Thanks for the all the replies.

 

Tom, good to know that I'm not the only supplier that this practice narks - to us it seems "you only call when...", "you don't really love me" etc . A freelance friend of mine pointed out that after being chased for cert hardcopies, a certain well known lighting set up discovered that they already had 3 copies and the final words went something like:

 

"Well, it seems everything is in order after all. You won't hear from us until next year" Whoops, Freudian slip?

 

I really like the idea of turning the contact into a marketing opportunity because it turns previously pointless efforts into a genuinely worthwhile exercise. Companies aren't suddenly going to start booking you just because you send them your certs, just like your real clients aren't going to stop calling one minute after midnight of the renewal date. So a bit of a promotional push could make a difference - it certainly would to my willingness to take the time out.

 

Nice idea in principle although as you know, this business is mainly about personal relationships with PMs and not really whether Jenny of Admin thinks you're a good boy for sending her pictures of yourself standing next to a flightcase. Hope the marketing efforts don't just end up "on file" (where the real PMs never spend any time)

 

It's good to have experience from others who have been in "the real world" (eugh) to draw upon ;-)

[TomHoward]

As you rightly point out, althought the marketing came in, in the organisation I was in, the person who chased up these certificates was indeed not the same person who actually chose and booked suppliers. However, since most of these people would probably be at a loose end as to what to do with promotional material that came back with one of these requests, if you included a covering letter asking if she could pass these materials on to project managers / the most appropriate people they'd probably do it without thinking.

 

Also, it depends on what your services are and what they have you down for - they may have you down as a live event supplier, when they are actively looking for installation contractors, and you in fact offer this service as well but they just didn't have you checked as one. This happened with us as well.

[Stan Hope-Streeter]

Luckily, there are companies in the world who treat freelancers as genuine subcontracting assets to their business and not disposable items. They want to book YOU for their next gig because of a known level of professionalism and commitment to their cause. With any luck, their client has asked for you specifally.

 

Surely if they book "YOU" for the above reasons, then you are not a legitimate freelancer but an employee. The Tax Man's test for genuine self employment is your freedom to send a dep, and the fact that you are being contracted to get the job done, not to do the job yourself.

 

Yes, I know the real world doesn't work that way, people hire "me" for the same reason they hire "you". But it just shows the nonsensical situation we are all working in.

 

It's not just our industry, whole sectors of the UK conomy are based on fake freelancing.