Please don’t recommend consulting a lawyer, as a lawyer would charge me more than what I am claiming.

Now, the story: I hired a cleaner through Helpling who, when cleaning, broke a piece of furniture valued at 200-300 EUR. The furniture is not my property, so I need to get it repaired and after checking with Helpling, they referred to their FAQ: [https://www.helpling.de/de\_en/insurance/](https://www.helpling.de/de_en/insurance/)

*If the claim is below 500 euros, it is not covered by the business liability insurance, which means that no settlement can be carried out via Helpling. In such cases, we recommend that the customer directly contacts the cleaner. Since the cleaners work on a self-employed basis, we have no authority to issue instructions.*

The problem is that the cleaner is a student from abroad without liability insurance. I won’t ever ask that person for the money back as I understand how hard it is living abroad, being a student, and working part-time to cover your costs.

My question is: Does anyone have experience with similar cases? Is it so, that marketplaces like Helpling do not have to cover damages, and if so, why do they have to do it just when above 500 EUR?

by andreas_mauer

5 comments

  1. I just want to thank you for being so considerate about the student. People like you made my life when I was a student very easy. Thank you

  2. Read their terms of service, look for this statement from the FAQ, and if you agreed to it, you can’t do anything I am afraid

  3. In the future, ask them to keep breaking stuff until they exceed 500€

  4. Legally speaking the cleaners are self-employed so they can decide if they want to take a professional liability insurance or not. (Practically speaking it doesn’t make any sense financially because an insurance that covers „cheap“ damages like yours would be unreasonably expensive)

  5. Yes, it’s legal since Helpling is not the actual service provider but an agency connecting clients and freelancers/small businesses. This also means no minimum wage, no regular work accident/health/unemployment insurance, no contribution to public retirement fund, etc.. Personal liability insurance won’t cover such accidents anyway because the incident is connected to running a business.

    I personally avoid such business models as far as I can.

Leave a Reply