Every tech startup insurance policy, ranked by when you need it
D&O at the term sheet, Tech E&O at first customer, Cyber the day you touch data - and the policies that come after. A trigger-by-trigger buying order.
The buying order, by trigger
The question 'what insurance do I need?' has a better-shaped answer: 'what insurance do I need yet?' Tech startups buy cover in a trigger-driven order, and the order is remarkably consistent across companies. Below is that order - what triggers each policy and why it lands when it does - so you can bind at the trigger, not after the loss.
One caveat before the list: triggers occasionally overlap, and a single event - a first enterprise customer with a data-processing addendum - can fire three at once. That is the moment a broker earns their keep, sequencing the bind rather than selling the whole shelf.
D&O - at the first term sheet
Directors & Officers liability is the policy that arrives earliest for a venture-backed company, because investors require it before the round closes. A term sheet is a trigger, not a formality: the moment there is outside capital and a board, the people on that board have personal exposure to claims about how the company was run. D&O is what keeps that exposure from being their house.
Pair it with EPLI - employment practices liability - from the first hire. Regulators and employees name individuals, not just the company, and a wrongful-termination or harassment claim defended out of pocket will dwarf the premium.
Risk notes, once a month.
One short note on Ontario tech risk - breaches, regulation, and what your policy should actually cover.
CGL - at the lease
Commercial General Liability is the boring policy that landlords, co-working spaces and many enterprise contracts insist on seeing before you sign. It covers the slip-and-fall, the damaged client property, and - the part that surprises founders - 'advertising injury,' the cover that defends you when a competitor challenges your 'faster, smarter' marketing claims. Those suits get thrown out, but they cost months and thousands to resolve.
If you lease nothing, host no visitors and sign nothing, CGL can wait. Most startups hit one of those by the end of the first year.
Reading is the start. A short conversation turns it into a plan.
No sales pressure. We'll look at your stage, your contracts, and your AI exposure, and tell you - plainly - where your current coverage won't hold up.
Tech E&O - at the first paying customer
The moment you sell your product or service, you have made a representation about what it does. If a customer says the product failed and cost them money, that is a Tech E&O claim - a software bug, a missed SLA, an integration that broke, an AI output that was wrong. General liability does not respond to this; it is a professional-services claim, and it needs a professional-liability policy.
Size the limit to the largest customer's actual exposure, not your contract value with them. A customer losing $400k an hour when you are down does not care that your annual invoice is $50k.
Cyber - the day you touch data
Cyber triggers when you hold data that isn't yours - customer PII, payment data, PHI, source code in a repo. For a tech startup that is launch day. The policy pays the forensics, the breach counsel, the regulator response under PIPEDA and PHIPA, the notification and credit monitoring, and the ransom if you pay. In Ontario specifically, confirm the policy names PHIPA in its regulatory-proceedings cover; many generic ones don't.
The two endorsements that earn the claim rather than advertise it: a contingent-business-interruption extension that includes your supply chain, and a broad 'computer system' definition that extends to the SaaS vendors you depend on. Without the supply-chain extension, your vendor's breach can be your uncovered loss.
The rest, layered as you grow
Past the core three sit Crime & Fidelity (employee dishonesty, social-engineering and fund-transfer fraud - the wire-fraud attempt is the trigger), intellectual property insurance (when patents or trademarks become part of your valuation), business interruption (when a week of downtime is a real number), key-person coverage, commercial auto once you have business vehicles, and workers' compensation once you have employees - which in Ontario is administered through the WSIB.
The pattern is the same throughout: each policy is bound when its trigger fires, sized to the exposure behind it, and stacked as its own limit so one claim doesn't erode another's cover.
Keep reading
Tech startup insurance in Ontario: what you need, when, and what it costs
The complete Ontario map of tech startup insurance - the policies that matter, the triggers that force them, RIBO and PHIPA, and rough cost by stage.
What tech startup insurance costs in Ontario (2026)
Premium ranges by policy and by stage, what moves the number up or down, and why the cheapest quote is rarely the cheapest claim.
Beyond Cyber, E&O and D&O: the policies Ontario tech founders forget
CGL, property and BOP, IP, business interruption, key person, commercial auto and workers' comp - the coverages that quietly matter once you scale.
Keep exploring
General information only. Not insurance advice.