You have an eye for style and know what colors go together, how to combine textures, and how to enhance spaces to reflect your clients tastes perfectly. Your business is thriving and you have happy customers, what more could you need? Well, like the insurance experts we are, we can advise on one thing that your interior design business most definitely needs: Interior Design Insurance.
As much as we love insurance, design insurance to be specific, we know that it can be a confusing and overwhelming topic. So, that is why we created this blog to break it down and explain:
- What Interior Design Insurance Is
- How It Works
- Who Needs It
- How Much It Costs
- What Coverages You Can Include
Now, enough with the chit chat, let’s dive into insurance for interior designers and explain just exactly what it is and how it can benefit your business.
What Is Interior Design Insurance?
Interior design insurance is designed to protect your business from the cost of third-party bodily injury and property damage claims that can arise from your business operations. Risks include injury, property damage, slander, copyright lawsuits, and libel.
Common claims can include:
- A client trips and falls, injuring themselves in your place of work.
- A client sues you for misinformation.
- A piece of staging furniture is damaged and you must replace it.
- A client sues you because the promised results weren’t achieved.
The cost of claims can include:
- Attorney fees
- Equipment replacement fees
- Medical fees
- Various odds and ends that can occur during a claim
How Does Interior Design Insurance Work?
Interior design insurance provides you with several coverage options that work together to protect your business from the cost of different types of risks and claims.
Mitigates Risk
When you have a business, there are several precautions you can take to mitigate and prevent claims. These precautions include covering sharp corners in your workplace, securing rugs and carpets, sorting out your legal documents, storing furniture correctly, and more.
However, you can mitigate risks all you want, claims can still happen. That is where design insurance comes in. For all the risks that you cannot prevent, interior designer insurance can help you avoid the financial strain associated with claims.
Protects You From Accidents
As with any business, there will be accidents. Unfortunately that is the not so fun part of owning and running a design business. But, insurance can protect you from the financial repercussions of claims and accidents. Accidents can happen at any time. Your insurance policy is 365 days of coverage and provides a safety net of coverages. It is important to note that while insurance can protect you from the cost of claims and accidents, it cannot prevent the accidents or claims from happening.
Accidents that interior designer insurance can help protect your business financially from can include the following scenario.
So you’re staging a house for an open house. You style the living room with a rug on top of the hardwood floors. A prospective buyer trips over the rug you placed down and injures their wrist. The injured party sues you and the homeowner for their injuries.
In this scenario, interior designer insurance can protect you from the financial fallout associated with this claim. That can include attorney fees, medical fees, and more.
How To File A Claim
Filing a claim doesn’t have to be scary or intimidating. The claims process with Insurance Canopy can be done in 5 simple steps.
- Simply sign into your user dashboard
- Click “File a Claim”
- Choose your policy
- Follow the prompts and include all the necessary information
- Work with one of our agents to complete the claim
Who Needs Interior Design Insurance?
Who We Cover
You may be wondering, “do interior designers need insurance?” Well, if you are a real estate interior designer, business interior designer, luxury interior designer, retail interior designer, lighting designer, interior design consultants, and really any type of interior designer who owns and operates a business with clients, then you need interior design insurance.
Why You Need It
You need interior design insurance because without it, claims could have the potential to financially devastate your business. Claims could cost tens of thousands of dollars and drain your financial resources.
Another reason you need insurance is to help promote and boost your professional reputation. If your business were to experience a claim, simply having insurance could determine whether or not a client comes back to your business. Not to mention, you can advertise your business as a licensed and insured business. Insurance can potentially bring you more clients.
How Much Does Interior Design Insurance Cost?
Interior design insurance starts at $21.08 per month and is A+ Rated by AM Best. With Insurance Canopy, you can expect a hassle-free, affordable, and personal insurance experience.
The price of your insurance premium can fluctuate depending on these 5 factors:
- Insurance limits you select
- State(s) you operate in
- Gross business revenues of your business
- Length of your coverage
- Coverages you include
It is important to note that agents with Insurance Canopy don’t earn commission. That helps keep premiums low and ensures that agents are 100% dedicated to helping you with your insurance questions.
Coverages Explained (& Why They Matter)
Interior design insurance can include several different coverages designed to protect your business from different types of claims. Listed below are the coverages that you should include on your policy with an explanation on what they are and in what scenario they can provide protection.
General Liability
General Liability insurance can protect you from the cost of third-party bodily injury and property damage claims. Did you know that the most common type of claims are General Liability claims? Yup, they are. General liability insurance can help protect you in the event that a customer trips over a piece of furniture and injures themselves. You could be held liable for their medical bills and expenses.
Professional Liability
Professional Liability insurance can protect interior designers from the cost of claims that happen as a result of your business operations. This can include misinformation, false advertising, or faulty professional advice. Professional Liability insurance can help protect you in the event of a client who sues you because they didn’t receive the promised result.
As a professional who offers opinions, advice, and consultations this is a very important coverage to include in your interior design insurance policy.
Errors and Omissions
Error and Omissions insurance is a great addition to your insurance policy because it can help protect against the cost of claims that stem from wrongly given professional advice and misinformation. It’s important to note that Errors and Omissions insurance can protect from the cost of claims that happen because of your business practices.
Cyber Liability
Cyber Liability insurance can help protect against the cost of claims that happen as a result of cyber security breaches or cyber security attacks. If you store any client information —such as payment information and contact information— online on a tablet, smartphone, or laptop, then you are vulnerable to a cybersecurity breach.
Cyber Liability claims are growing in number rapidly as more and more businesses move to storing information and client information online. Did you know that nearly 43% of cyber attacks are on small businesses.
Tools and Equipment
Tools and Equipment insurance —also known and Inland Marine insurance— extends insurance protection to your business equipment. Tools and Equipment coverage can repair or replace stolen or damaged equipment. Common claims associated with this coverage include staging furniture getting damaged when your warehouse floods during a bad storm.
And There You Have It
There it is, everything you need to know about interior designer insurance and how it can help your business: financially, professionally, and legally. If you’re looking for another resource when it comes to inspiration for designs, learning new tricks of the trade, or even just buffing up on your interior design knowledge, check out 5 of the best online interior design courses.
If you have any questions at all, please reach out! Our agents are available to help answer any questions you may have. So what else are you waiting for? Protect your business with interior design insurance and get started today!
