Why do life coaches need insurance?
Unsuccessful techniques
Whether you carry out cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or advise clients on visualising their career goals, your chosen techniques have an impact. During a session with a weekly client, you begin working on a strategy to help them overcome some of the obstacles holding them back. Further down the line, the client claims your technique caused them mental injury and trauma and files a claim for malpractice. When combined professional, treatment and public liability insurance is built into your life coach cover, this can assist with legal and compensation costs.
Data breaches
The database you use to store client information is full of sensitive data. Despite employing the recommended security measures and following safe storage guidelines, your system is compromised by a cyber-attack. The cybercriminals hold your data to ransom and threaten to expose details unless you pay to retrieve it. Thankfully, insurance can assist your small life coaching business with the breach – Hiscox may be able to cover costs and provide expert advice, helping you recover quickly.
A personal accident
A weekend run leads to a broken ankle and a trip to the local hospital – unfortunately, this means you cannot drive to see clients for several weeks. In this time, your regular overheads still need to be paid, but you find yourself temporarily without income. Life coaching is all about providing a personal service, so if you find yourself out of action, your business might grind to a halt. Luckily, your business insurance was tailored to include personal accident cover, so there could be help at hand.
What insurance is available for life coaching?
Life coaching is varied work, but advice, treatments and contact with the public pose common risks. For this industry, we bring together elements of professional treatment liability insurance and public and products liability within a single insurance policy.
Professional treatment liability insurance
Should a client claim the techniques used in your therapy led to illness or injury, combined professional, treatment and public liability insurance can help to protect your life coaching business. You try to provide the best guidance possible, but you’re unable to control how your words are interpreted and can’t always predict the effects. While you’re always committed to helping rather than hindering, the success on your work is based on how it’s received. If you or an employee get it wrong, Hiscox can assist with costs associated to a claim.
Public liability insurance
As a life coach, working with people is an everyday activity and risk comes with that, whether you hold sessions with clients at your office or at their home. Incidents can be unrelated to the work you do. You might accidentally break a valuable ornament, or a visitor could trip on uneven flooring in your office foyer, for instance. Professional, treatment and public liability insurance can help cover the legal costs should someone face property damage or injury because of your life coaching business.
Personal accident insurance
Personal accident insurance is designed to help small business owners – including life coaches – to deal with the financial pressures that come with accidental injury. It can be especially useful for self-employed life coaches or other professionals who take on a lot of responsibility. If you, or a named employee, find yourself out of action for more than two weeks, this cover could pay you a weekly sum until you’re fit to return.
Life coaching professionals might also benefit from a combination of other insurance products including employers’ liability, office insurance and cyber and data cover.
If you’re not sure what you need, tell us a little more about your life coaching business. We’ll help you to build your quote and explore any other insurance needs.
Build my coverInsurance for life coaches: FAQs
What insurance do I need if I’m working from home?
If you’re working from home, you may still require cover for your home-based business, especially if your home insurance policy doesn’t cover your valuable work equipment.
Whether you work from home or an office, your role will also consistently require you to give advice, so combined professional, treatment and public liability cover may always be relevant. Accidents are possible anywhere, too, so public liability insurance could provide a safety net in the event of trips, slips, falls or damage to property for when clients visit you.
When would a life coach need employers’ liability insurance?
Employers’ liability insurance might be a legal requirement (external link) for your business from the moment you take on your first recruit. For most businesses with employees in the UK this is essential, although whether you need employers’ liability cover differs depending on the business and the circumstances.
This product helps to safeguard your company if a member of staff claims they have fallen ill or become injured as a result of their work for you. Small ventures that would be unable to manage financially without cover in the event of a claim could find this insurance especially beneficial.
Do Hiscox need to know how many clients I coach and how often?
No, it’s not necessary to provide any details of your client base before you get cover – we understand that all small businesses have to start from somewhere.
Should your potential liabilities change, however, it might be a good idea to add to your policy accordingly. For instance, you might need to take on staff as client numbers grow and require employers’ liability cover. Also, if your turnover increases it may be a prompt to check your levels of cover as they may need increasing to align with the expansion of your business.
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