BUSINESS INSURANCE GUIDE
What business insurance do I actually need?
You start it to win clients, build something valuable and keep moving. But as the business develops, insurance has a habit of becoming more important.
BUSINESS INSURANCE GUIDE
You start it to win clients, build something valuable and keep moving. But as the business develops, insurance has a habit of becoming more important.
A client asks for an insurance certificate. You take on your first employee. A new contract requires £2 million of cover. You're holding more customer data than you were a year ago.
The good news is you don't need to understand every insurance policy on the market. A much better place to start is understanding the risks your own business actually creates.
Here are six questions worth asking.
If they do, Professional Indemnity Insurance may be relevant.
Imagine you're a consultant and a client alleges that your advice cost them £100,000. Or you're a designer and an error in your work means part of a project has to be completed again.
Professional Indemnity is designed to help with eligible claims arising from professional advice, services, errors or omissions. Clients, contracts and professional bodies may also require you to have it.
This is where Public Liability Insurance comes in.
A builder might accidentally damage a customer's floor, someone could slip while visiting a café, or a consultant could damage an expensive piece of equipment while working at a client's office.
Public Liability can help protect against eligible claims involving injury to other people or damage to their property because of your business activities.
If you employ people, Employers' Liability is one of the first covers to understand.
It helps protect your business against eligible claims from employees who become injured or ill because of their work. For most UK businesses employing people, Employers' Liability Insurance is also legally required, although limited exemptions apply.
Think about how much of your day depends on email, laptops, cloud software, websites, online payments or customer information. If you suddenly lost access to those systems tomorrow morning, how much of your business could continue operating normally?
Cyber Insurance is designed to help businesses respond to specified cyber attacks, data breaches and digital disruption. You certainly don't need to be a technology company to have cyber risk.
Running a limited company doesn't remove every potential personal exposure.
Directors' & Officers' Insurance can help protect insured directors and other individuals against certain claims arising from decisions or actions taken while managing a business.
The important distinction is that a claim can sometimes be made against the individual, rather than simply the company.
A disagreement with an employee, client or supplier can become a legal issue surprisingly quickly.
Legal Expenses Insurance can provide legal support and help with costs for certain covered disputes and legal matters.
Before choosing cover, think about what your business actually does, who relies on you, what could happen if something goes wrong and what your contracts require.
A freelance consultant and a building contractor may both need business insurance, but for completely different reasons.
The aim isn't to buy every type of cover available. It's to understand the risks that could genuinely affect the business you've worked hard to build.
Explore insurance for the way your business actually works.
