Garden Designer Insurance
Garden design is a niche area of work. On first thought, it might seem like it’s not the kind of job that requires insurance as there are as there aren’t many things that you would need protection from. However, this assumption can easily be proven incorrect. Many risks and possibilities can come up in garden design, and it is best to consider how you can protect yourself and your craft against these unpredictable events.
While most forms of work would benefit from some insurance, the main types of insurance policies recommended for garden designers are different from what you’d typically expect. This is because it is an advice based profession rather than necessarily involving the actual carrying out of labour. There are certainly some policies that should be considered that are almost universal and some that may be legal depending on the size of your operation, just as in other areas of business.
If you would like to read more information or learn more about the pricing of business insurance, you can do so here.
What key policies should be considered?
The garden designers professional indemnity insurance is the critical policy feature you should consider. Professional indemnity insurance is also known as PPI insurance and helps protect you against negligent advice claims. This doesn’t mean it’s something that you should leave because you never intend to be negligent. Things like this are sometimes entirely subjective. Suppose your former client can construct a better legal challenge or make a stronger argument.
In that case, even if you have done your work to the best of your ability, you may find yourself in a tricky financial and legal situation. Coming under the force of one of these claims can be very expensive if you aren’t correctly insured. First is the potential compensation you’ll have to pay to your or former client, which could undo months of hard work. Secondly, there is the cost of the legal fees to try and defend yourself from the claim or negotiate the size of the compensation.
It’s not likely to be your speciality as a garden designer to fight legal cases and barter over compensation sizes, which is why many people choose to get out their professional indemnity insurance instead. This means that if one of these unfortunate instances does ever arise, then you know that you’ve been paying a small, regular amount that has left you prepared for this moment. Therefore, you can concentrate on getting back to garden design whilst the insurance professionals focus on financially protecting you and covering the costs of any potential compensation that you’re ordered to pay.
Public Liability Insurance
There are two other policies that you will want to consider which are more common in standard lines of work. The first of these is public liability insurance. Professional indemnity insurance is used to cover the legal and financial troubles that may arise from someone claiming you. However, this is used for incidents involving public members who may have injury sustained or damage incurred upon their property due to your garden design business.
It’s highly recommended that garden designers consider getting public liability insurance. Their work often involves the movement of many essential things and sometimes heavy pieces of machinery, so there’s a significant risk taken by expecting there to be no chance that anything ever goes wrong.
Employers’ Liability Insurance
The last of the central policies that used to be considered is employers’ liability insurance. This is different from the last two policies because it is compulsory for those who employ staff. So if your garden design is not done as a sole trader but instead is a business that employs other people, then you have a legal requirement to take out employers’ liability insurance. However, just because it’s compulsory does not mean you wouldn’t want it anyway.
It’s there to protect you and your employees should anything happen to them, such as an illness or injury that requires their compensation which your company may not afford without insurance. This saves you from any unexpected financial crises and protects employees if they are hurt or made sick.
Is there anything else?
Other garden designers can consider other policies such as personal accident insurance or business and office equipment insurance. Just because these are not in the central three policies named does not mean they are unimportant. They should also be considered if you want to have peace of mind in the long term about being financially protected and ready to keep your business running at all times.
Find out more about the importance of insurance here.
Other useful links about Business Insurance:
Insurance For Creatives
5 Types of Gym Insurance
Hair Salon Insurance
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