Why do life coaches need insurance?
When you work as a Life Coach, if you are self-employed, having your own insurance is essential to help provide security for you and your clients. Insurance claims can be rare for Life Coaches and premiums tend to be relatively low, with the yearly cover being as low as £100.
Life Coaching is a highly unregulated industry, where there are no legal requirements for you to open your own practice. There are several different coaching programs and life coaching services on the market, they can be confused with other services, like counselling or therapy which can create mismatched expectations.
When you work as a Life Coach or a small business owner you may want to insure yourself and your business for various reasons. This may include protecting assets of the business against theft or damage by fire, and if you have large financial commitments associated with your life coaching business, then you may want to insure against problems with those. You may also want to obtain insurance against ill health or other eventualities to work as a Life Coach and service these commitments.
Different types of life coach insurance
Finding the right type of life coach insurance can be difficult when you are unclear on the important aspects of each different option and why you would need it. Below we have explained some key insurance options to help you get started.
Professional liability
When you undertake professional liability insurance, this will protect your business if you are sued against your services, even if you have not necessarily made a mistake. When you work as a Life Coach you could be sued for breaking the confidentiality clause agreements or causing harm through advice.
You may be in a situation where you have not done the accused problem, but you always need to work with a legal professional to protect yourself and your business against these claims. Having professional liability insurance will help cover the expenses of legal defence and settlement of the damage. As insurance industry trends shift, new policies are being created to meet the unique needs of life coaches and similar professions.
Understanding the nuances of insurance for life coaches is vital, as it provides a safety net for both the coach and their clients in a variety of unforeseen situations.
General liability
When you invest in general liability that will support you in providing insurance coverage for your business when your client makes claims against you for injury, damage to property, or personal injury. This would cover you if a client was to hurt themselves whilst walking into your office, then through general liability insurance, you will cover the cost of lawsuits and any damage caused.
Loss of earnings cover
If you’re self-employed you will not be able to earn if you aren’t working. This means that if you were injured or ill for weeks or months you could risk losing a large number of earnings as a Life Coach. Loss of earnings insurance will help cover this should you ever need it to ensure you can still earn even when you can’t work.
Cyber liability
When you choose to have cyber liability insurance you are protecting yourself against the risk of cyber attacks or data breaches. When you work as a Life Coach you are likely to have several different documents on personal matters of your clients, this isn’t something that should ever be shared, however issues like data breaches can be a result of this happening.
There is often a need to keep your data on virtual servers to keep it secure. An example of such a virtual server would be virtual data room solutions.
If you choose to have cyber liability insurance, you will be covered for the cost of lawsuits from clients in the event of a data leak or cyber attack.
Different Life Coach insurance providers
Just like every other insurance type, there are a number of different Life Coach insurance providers. When choosing the right insurance you need to figure out how you will be operating and what type of cover you may need. Once this is clear, you can compare different providers against what you are looking for to find your final choice. Below are some of the top Life Coach insurance companies we have found:
Do I need the same insurance if I work from home?
If you’re working from home it’s easy to assume that your home insurance is enough to cover you, however, a lot of home insurance will not protect you for the work you are doing from there. To understand more about this, check over your policy and understand how this works from a business perspective.
Contents insurance will cover furnishings and contents you use for the purpose of work, whilst business equipment will help cover the essential day-to-day equipment you are using to do your jobs such as phones, laptops, desktops or screens.