Business insurance for Counsellors


As a professional counsellor, insurance helps to protect your interests by defending against the unexpected – so you can stay poised to support clients.

Counselling services revolve around empathy, respect and listening. This work requires tact and comes with risk. You might need to challenge someone’s beliefs as part of divorce counselling, but in doing so, could stand accused of giving harmful advice.

Your business may also face liability claims, or disruption due to a cyber attack. Counselling insurance can help provide financial back-up in different circumstances. 

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Why choose Hiscox for counselling insurance?


1

Save time and moneyOur new combined professional, treatment and public liability insurance brings together multiple cover types within a single policy, so could help you save money

2

Knowledgeable specialists

Get access to a dedicated claims team, who understand the counselling profession and can help fix issues

3

Support that goes above and beyondBenefits such as media and PR support can help you assess risks before making a claim. Plus, there's practical business support in the Business Support Hub

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Why do counsellors need insurance?


An unfortunate injury

Imagine you are working from a university office when you hear a loud noise in the corridor outside. You pause a counselling session to find a student has sustained a head injury – and it appears they slipped on a report template you dropped. The student misses key exams due to time in hospital and decides to take legal action against your counselling business. Including public liability cover within your insurance policy means the cost of court proceedings and compensation is covered.

Unsuccessful treatment

Not all harm is physical – as a counsellor, you may face risks related to mental injury. Perhaps your sleep counselling techniques attempt to explore underlying anxiety issues and promote long-lasting improvement. However, a client may feel this approach has worsened or prolonged their problems. Your combined professional, treatment and public liability insurance can protect you if a client tries to recover their fees or sues you for causing an injury via negligent practice.

A hacking situation

A malicious email transmits a virus onto your business computer, locking the files you need for afternoon counselling sessions. Worse still, these contain confidential data – and a hacker is threatening to delete them if you don’t pay a ransom. To deal with such a situation, you may need to pay the ransom, then hire a specialist risk consultancy firm to assess the severity of the data loss. With cyber insurance in place, financial pains don’t need to compound the events.

What cover is included in insurance for counsellors?


Professional treatment liability insurance and public liability insurance can be helpful for counsellors. So, we have combined them into one product – professional, treatment and public liability insurance. Though we talk about them separately below, professional, treatment and public liability insurance is a combined cover with one combined limit. You can get public liability cover as a counsellor by purchasing this combined cover. Contact us to find out more about how the combined product works, and to ask any other insurance questions.

Counselling firms come in all shapes and sizes, so some organisations may require additional cover. If you hire other counsellors, employers’ liability insurance could be necessary, while personal accident and cyber cover can assist if the unforeseen strikes too.

Such a superb website with a user friendly interface with very clear detail. The simple no nonsense application process made the whole experience painless and quick.
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If you’re not sure what you need, tell us a little more about your work as a counsellor. We’ll help you to build your quote and explore any other insurance needs.

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Insurance for counsellors: FAQs


Do I need counsellor insurance if I conduct my sessions online?

Insurance is still an important consideration for counsellors who operate online since the work is similar to face-to-face counselling – your words can still lead to claims.

As a counsellor, you may make it a point of policy to never give advice, but even so, your discussions could cause harm. There’s also a chance you could accidentally breach confidentiality rules – so professional, treatment and public liability insurance could be an important cover to have.

When your main communication channels become digital, cyber insurance could also help to protect your counselling business from risks associated with sensitive data falling into the wrong hands.

Explore the home-based insurance you might need to consider, to protect a remote business from the risks of residential working, including damage and theft.

Does Hiscox offer medical malpractice insurance for counsellors?

Counselling malpractice claims are covered as part of our combined professional, treatment and public liability insurance for health, beauty and wellness businesses.

In practice, this product covers a counsellor in many of the same ways as medical malpractice cover, including for malpractice, negligence, breach of duty of care and breach of confidentiality.

This means that, if you are accused of causing mental harm due to malpractice, professional treatment liability insurance for counsellors has you covered.

What’s the difference between a counsellor and psychotherapist?

Counsellors and psychotherapists are both types of talking therapists, but focus can differ. Counsellors may explore life events such as bereavement and job uncertainty, for instance, whereas psychotherapists might focus on longer-term issues such as addiction.

The fields overlap considerably, however. Many professional bodies, such as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), crossover.

This means, although the training routes for counsellors and therapists are slightly different, many professional risks are similar.


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