Insurance considerations for staff employed at home in Portugal

Many international residents in the Algarve run households that depend on the people who keep them working: a housekeeper who comes a few mornings a week, a gardener, a caretaker who watches a property between visits, a driver, and at times a chef or crew for a boat. These arrangements are often informal — agreed verbally, paid in cash, and treated as a private matter between two people.

Under Portuguese law they are not a private matter. The moment someone works in your home in return for payment, you take on the legal position of an employer, and a specific set of social-security and insurance duties follows. This applies whether the household is your main residence or a property you use for part of the year, and it applies to staff engaged for a handful of hours as much as to those employed full time. What follows sets out those duties, shows where the mandatory cover ends, and identifies the situations that need separate attention.

You are the employer — what Portuguese law requires

Domestic work in Portugal (serviço doméstico) is governed by its own legal regime. Engaging a housekeeper, a gardener, a nanny or a carer as your own worker places you in the role of employer, with two obligations that are frequently overlooked by foreign residents.

The first is registration with Segurança Social. The worker must be registered before employment begins, and monthly contributions are due on the declared pay. The second is a compulsory workplace-accidents insurance (seguro de acidentes de trabalho), required under Lei n.º 98/2009. This policy is not optional and does not depend on the number of hours worked. A person who cleans for four hours on a Tuesday is covered by the same requirement as a live-in employee.

The gap between the law and common practice is wide. A household that has employed the same cleaner for years, in good faith and on friendly terms, may have neither registered the worker nor arranged the accidents cover — and remain fully exposed until something goes wrong.

What the workplace-accidents policy covers

The seguro de acidentes de trabalho responds when a worker is injured, falls ill or dies as a result of their work. For an employer it converts an open-ended personal liability into a defined, insured one. The policy meets the medical and rehabilitation costs of an accident, pays compensation for the wages lost while the worker cannot work, provides a capital sum or pension for permanent disability, and pays benefits to dependants in the event of death.

The consequence of not holding it is where the exposure becomes serious. If an uninsured worker is injured, the employer is personally responsible for the full cost of the same benefits the policy would have paid — treatment, compensation, and any long-term award. The Fundo de Acidentes de Trabalho may step in to pay the injured worker in the first instance, and it is then entitled to pursue the employer for reimbursement of everything it has paid out. A single accident on a staircase or beside a pool can produce a claim that runs for years.

Employing someone in your home, even for a few hours a week, makes you an employer under Portuguese law — and the workplace-accidents cover is the difference between an insured claim and an open personal liability.

Where the mandatory policy stops

The accidents-at-work policy protects the worker. It does nothing for the other exposures that arise when people work in and around your property, and these are the areas households most often leave uncovered.

The first is liability to third parties. If a member of your staff causes injury or damage to someone else — a delivery driver, a neighbour, a visitor — while acting on your behalf, the claim can be directed at you as their employer. Personal and household liability cover (responsabilidade civil familiar) is designed to respond here, and it is usually a section of a home multi-risk policy rather than a standalone contract. It is worth confirming that the policy names domestic staff acting for the household, and not only the family members themselves.

The second is damage to your own property. Accidental damage caused by staff — a burst appliance hose, a fire left unattended, a scratched floor during cleaning — is generally a matter for the buildings and contents sections of the home policy, subject to its terms and excesses. Where the policy applies a proportional rule and the sum insured is understated, the payout for such damage is reduced accordingly.

The third is staff who work across more than one property. A caretaker or housekeeper who divides their time between two homes, or between a residence and a holiday property, needs to be accounted for at each location. The accidents cover should reflect the actual pattern of work, and the household liability at each address should extend to the same person.

Situations that need separate attention

Boat crew

Crew employed on a private vessel are usually outside the domestic-service regime altogether. Maritime employment is governed by its own framework, and the accidents-at-work cover and social-security basis for a skipper or deckhand differ from those of a housekeeper. Adding crew to a domestic-staff arrangement leaves them improperly insured; they should be covered under a policy written for the maritime regime, taking into account where the vessel is used and kept.

Staff who travel with the household

A domestic policy is written for work carried out in Portugal. When a nanny, carer or housekeeper travels with the family to another country — for the summer, or between two homes abroad — the territorial scope of the accidents cover matters. Some policies extend to temporary work abroad for a limited period; others do not. The extent of cover should be confirmed in advance of any regular travel, rather than assumed.

Gardeners and maintenance: contractor or employee?

The distinction between an independent contractor and an employee is a legal question, and it decides who carries the insurance obligation. A gardener or pool technician who runs their own business, works for several clients, uses their own equipment and invoices you should hold their own workplace-accidents and liability cover — and you are entitled to ask for evidence of it. A person who works only for you, to your schedule and instructions, is likely to be your employee in substance regardless of how the arrangement is labelled, which places the accidents obligation on you. Where the position is unclear, it is safer to establish it before work begins than to discover it after a claim.

Arranging cover in practice

To arrange the mandatory accidents cover and check the surrounding liability, a broker needs a straightforward picture of the household: the role each person performs, their declared pay, and the days and hours they work. Where staff move between properties, the addresses and the split of time at each are relevant. For anyone who might be a contractor rather than an employee, their own insurance details allow the position to be confirmed.

The workplace-accidents policy is written on an annual basis and priced against the payroll you declare. Because pay and hours change — a seasonal increase in staff, a new gardener, a rise in wages — the declared figures are reconciled over the year, and the cost adjusts to the actual payroll rather than to a fixed estimate. Keeping the declaration current is what keeps the cover valid; understating it can reduce a claim in the same way that understating a sum insured does.

This article is provided for general information and does not constitute personalised advice; the position in any particular household depends on its own facts. Adler & Rochefort is a commercial brand of Ownizo Unipessoal LDA, mediador registado na ASF n.º 425591790/3.