Stairway to Insurance

Everyone makes mistakes, we’re only human after all. However, while some errors humans make may only slightly affect their lives, others can ruin you. As a translator, mistakes can occur, no matter how good you think you are. The difference lies between a slight error in the translation of a pamphlet for tourists where no one gets hurt and a slight error in a medical translation that could lead to someone getting hurt. In one of these cases you could end up in serious trouble, I’ll let you figure out which one.

How this is dealt with really depends on where you work. In previous articles (or in class) you may have been told that as a translator, you generally have two career paths: become an in-house translator, or become a freelancer. In terms of translation and work ethics, these two can have their differences, but when it comes to insurance there can be a huge gap. An in-house translator depends on the insurance provided by his agency, the quality of which can vary, the freelance translator has only but himself to rely on, the quality of which can also vary.

In this article we’ll be taking a look at the ways insurance vary for an in-house and freelance translator, how to get insurance as a freelancer, with the help of five translators who were kind enough to answer my questions.

In-house translation

To begin with, when you work as an in-house translator you automatically join whatever insurance policy they have. It’s as simple as that. As an established company, it is strongly recommended that they provide insurance for their employees. Only a select few professions in France require insurance for a company, such as any medical job, legal job, or even real estate. The quality of the insurance provided does vary from company to company. If you’re looking for a job in translation with incredible insurance, look no further than institutional translation in institutions such as the European Union, or the United Nations. Not only do they pay you more per word than any other agency, the benefits you get with the job are some of the best in the world. For example, working for the United Nations, you will be under the care the Health & Life Insurance Section (HLIS), who will enrol you into their Medical Insurance Plan (MIP), which provides coverage for all your general medical and dental needs. It’s important to remember that this is not the case for all companies, that some have a very basic insurance, either way you won’t have to go through the hassle of setting your insurance up yourself.

Freelance translation

This leads us nicely to the next part of this article: freelance insurance. In France, as a freelancer, you are under no obligation to be insured as a translator. It is however strongly recommended, but I will get to that shortly, first we’ll take a look at the different steps to getting insurance as a freelance translator.

Step one: Become a freelance translator. In France to benefit from this status you will have to register yourself as a micro-enterprise to the Organisations for the Collection of Social Security and Family Benefit Contributions (known in French as URSSAF).

Step two: Once that has been accepted, you will be attached to the Social Security program for Independent professions (SSI).

Step three: Finally, you can now turn to any private insurer, and you can pick which insurance plan you would like and best fits your needs (to know more about the different plans you can select from, please read the article “Welcome to the contract jungle”).

This may all seem a little daunting, like a mountain to conquer, but you are not alone! In France the union “the French Association for Translators (SFT)” can offer a ton of help to new translators. They do this in two different ways, the first is through the Committee on Insurance, Mutual Insurance and Legal Assistance, who acts as a middle man between the translator and insurance companies, to make sure that the translator is getting the best deal possible for their needs. The second is through the network of translators who are members of the SFT. There is no better help than colleagues who have been through it all before.

To know more about the world of insurance for translators, I contacted 5 freelance translators (who have asked to remain anonymous), and asked them a few questions regarding insurance, and what their opinions are.

The Interview

In my first question, I asked them if they had insurance, and if so what plan they had.

Out of the five translators, four had insurance, and all four were covered by business liability insurance. As seen previously in the article “Welcome to the contract jungle”, the business liability insurance is what is considered the bare minimum ; interestingly none of the four translators added other plans to this.

In my second question I asked whether their insurance had ever come in handy in case of mistakes in a translation, or problems with a client. The four translators with insurance all answered with an emphatic “no”. Now these translators have been in the profession for the past 15 years, and as consummate professionals, mistakes are most likely rare. What this shows us is that insurance, whilst acting as a protection between the translator and their client, isn’t always needed.

In the face of this new information that I hadn’t considered, my final question to the translators was: Do you think it’s important for a translator to be insured?

To which they all (but one) said yes. Despite never having needed it in their 15 years working as a freelance translator, they all thought it was important because, as one translator put it, “better safe than sorry”. It’s better to have insurance and need it, than need it and not have it.

To conclude, according to the 5 translators I interviewed, despite their never needing it, they still recommend getting insurance. But as we’ve seen, getting insurance isn’t the scary monster it can first appear as! With help from colleagues and unions, the process is made much easier. And if you are still petrified at the idea of this administrative mess, you can always go work for an agency, where all of this is covered by your employer!

Written by Emile Pascalis, M1 TSM 2022-2023