A Series A is the first time most founders deal seriously with corporate insurance. Until that point, the company is small enough that the absence of formal cover is mostly tolerated. After it, three things change at once: there’s outside money on the cap table, there’s a formal board, and there are usually new senior hires being made. Each of those creates an insurance ask.
Here’s what investors and boards actually expect, what you need to bind before the round closes, and what’s cheap to defer.
The non-negotiables
Directors & officers (D&O)
The first ask. Every priced round creates personal liability for directors — and the new investor-appointed director won’t accept the seat without cover in place. D&O typically gets bound either at closing or within 30 days.
Sizing at Series A is usually $3M–$5M, with retention sized to the round size. The form matters more than the premium: look at Side A drop-down (cover when the company can’t indemnify), bankruptcy preservation, and the breadth of the regulatory-investigation cover. The cheapest quote usually has the narrowest form.
Cyber liability
The customer ask. Enterprise procurement now treats cyber as a hard gate, and many of your Series A and later customers will require it before signing. Sizing depends on your data exposure — $2M–$5M is typical for an early B2B SaaS holding limited PII; firms with regulated PII (fintech, healthtech) start at $5M and go up.
Get the form with affirmative AI liability cover if you ship any AI feature in production. The endorsement adds modest premium and closes the largest single gap in standard cyber forms.
Employment practices liability (EPLI)
The board ask. With a formal board, you’re expected to carry EPLI for the wage, harassment, discrimination and wrongful-termination claims that come with a growing W-2 workforce. Multi-state cover is essential if you have a single remote employee outside your HQ state.
Sizing $1M–$3M depending on headcount and geographic spread.
The probably-yes
- Tech E&O — combined with cyber on the same form is typical for SaaS. Covers allegations that your service caused a customer loss.
- Key person life — usually requested by investors as part of the round documentation. Cheap and worth doing.
- Crime / social engineering — once your finance person is wiring meaningful amounts to vendors. Often added at Series B but worth knowing about earlier.
The cheap-to-defer
- Commercial property unless you actually lease premises with material contents
- Commercial auto unless you actually own vehicles
- Workers’ comp ghost policy for corporate officers in states that don’t require coverage on owners (though check your state rules)
What investors actually look at
When investors ask “what insurance do you have,” they’re really checking three things:
- D&O is bound — protecting their board appointee
- Cyber is sized to the customer base — protecting the revenue line
- A real broker is involved — meaning someone read the MSAs and the form
You don’t need a 40-page programme. You need the right three to four lines, sized correctly, bound to your actual contract requirements. The brokers who do this well charge similar fees to those who don’t — but their boards sleep better.
The renewal cadence
Series A programmes typically get re-shopped at every funding event. The premium math changes meaningfully with revenue and headcount; the form math changes with the kind of customers you sell to. If you’ve moved from SMB to enterprise customers since your last renewal, your form may need to follow even if the premium would otherwise be flat.
A good broker re-shops at each round without being asked. If yours doesn’t, that’s a signal too.
