What is the Kingsbridge IR35 Status tool?
Long-time readers of the blog will know all about the Kingsbridge IR35 Status Tool. It’s designed to be the perfect hybrid between an automated, questionnaire-based tool and an expert assessment.
Our nuanced tool asks a series of questions about an engagement to assess the status of contractors. For any borderline results that are thrown up, we get a member of our experienced IR35 team to take a closer look and clarify any necessary details to produce an accurate status assessment.
Our recruiter clients that have been using this tool report that it helps them have conversations with end clients and contractors about the IR35 status of a contract, and makes them feel secure and protected.
IR35 insurance for recruiters
For further protection, many recruiters are looking for insurance options. Some are requiring contractors to hold up-to-date IR35 insurance alongside the usual PI and PL insurance requirements. Our IR35 Protect and Legal cover is ideal for this.
For extra security for you, Kingsbridge also offers a Off-Payroll Protect option, where we will cover all the “outside” contractors on your books. Our IR35 cover includes £100,000 worth of IR35 status enquiry defence costs and an additional £100,000 of cover for taxes, interest and penalties from HMRC as standard.
In the event of an investigation, it will usually be the fee payer who will be liable for these costs. Having an insurance package like Off-Payroll Protect safeguards your business if HMRC deems your hiring business liable in the event of an IR35 investigation.
It also covers the engager, meaning that you’re able to provide extra reassurance and security to your end clients. In turn, this helps them feel more confident offering outside contracts that you know will attract the best talent.
This is important in a climate where before the off-payroll reforms, only 14% of contractors said they would accept an inside determination and this also puts both you and your client in a stronger position.
It’s important to note that both our contractor and recruiter IR35 protect insurances are subject to a “prospects of success” clause. This means that the contract has to have been properly assessed by an approved reviewer when producing the Status Determination Statement.
The simplest way to ensure this is met is to make use of the Kingsbridge IR35 Status Tool. However, your end clients may have their own systems or processes in place, which might not meet the requirements of the prospects of success clause.
But what if you still want to insure them?
What if the contractor has already been assessed?
That’s where our new Insurance Validation Tool (IVT) comes in. The IVT is essentially a “lite” version of the full Kingsbridge Status Tool. It’s designed to quickly check the accuracy of an external status determination with just 10 quick questions.
This is useful if the status has already been assessed through a tool such as CEST or elsewhere, and you don’t want to go through the whole process of a full assessment again. The IVT is designed to quickly check if the original SDS would stand up in an investigation.
It’s not a full IR35 assessment, so it won’t produce a new SDS, but it will meet the prospects of success criteria, making your or the contractor’s IR35 insurance valid without exclusions. Of course, if you decide not to use the IVT, you or your contractor can still purchase IR35 insurance without the prospect of success clause being met.
Using the IVT might also indicate that the current SDS isn’t accurate. If this happens, you or the contractor can still purchase IR35 Protect or Off-Payroll Protect, but the prospects of success clause will be applicable in the policy wording. You’ll then need to reassess the contract using the full version of the Kingsbridge IR35 Status Tool.
What are the benefits of the Insurance Validation Tool?
- With the responsibility for producing status determination statuses now lying with the end client, it’s likely that as a recruiter you receive IR35 results from lots of different sources, carried out using different assessment tools (some of which are more accurate and thorough than others)
- The IVT provides a quick and standardised way to double-check the accuracy of these determinations. . It takes just minutes to check a determination, streamlining your compliance processes.
- Using the IVT meets the prospects of success clause in your IR35 insurance policy wording, but doesn’t require a full IR35 status assessment.
If your contractor purchases IR35 Protect through your affiliate link, we’ll send you their policy documents to help you keep your compliance records.
It’s also worth emphasising to your contractors that if they hold separate business insurances like professional indemnity and public liability, this acts as an indicator of being outside IR35. It demonstrates that their limited company carries a financial risk – something which would not apply to someone in an employee relationship.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the IR35 solutions that Kingsbridge can offer to help you and your recruitment business ensure compliance and protect themselves against financial and professional risk, please reach out to our partnerships team.
You can book a demo of the Kingsbridge status tool or the insurance validation tool and a member of the team will be in touch with you. Alternatively, send an email to partners@kingsbridge.co.uk.
