Interior Designer Insurance
An interior designer, essentially, designs the interior of a house. However, this is not just a straightforward job as there is a long list of other responsibilities that they have authority over. These include identifying the objectives of the design, planning the measurements and orientations, actually creating the vision they had planned, and keeping to the budget.
So why would you need interior designer insurance? The average annual salary for an experienced interior designer can range between £25,000 to £40,000, and whilst this is an impressive wage, it would be considerably challenging to put aside a sum of money each year to pay off hefty claims should any accidents occur. Insurance is put in place to aid a designer financially if they encounter these difficulties.
If you would like to read more information or learn more about the pricing of business insurance, you can do so here.
Types of Interior Designer Insurance
Interior designer insurance can be a culmination of covers depending on what each designer deems is necessary for their business.
-
Professional indemnity insurance
Professional indemnity insurance can be beneficial when a mistake is unintentionally made, which then goes on to cause a variety of problems in completing the project. Interior designers must listen very carefully to their client’s demands and take particular notes of their requests and ideas. Any miscommunication could result in significant financial loss as money would be spent, only for the final result to leave the customer feeling dissatisfied.
For example, if the designer noted down the wrong shade and forgot to double-check or ordered the wrong furniture from the catalogue, this would be classed as a professional mistake because whilst it was not deliberate, it means that the job was done incorrectly. Professional indemnity insurance would recompensate the client for any additional money they would need to reconstruct their room as they specified. This is mutually beneficial because the customer would be satisfied, and the designer would not have to pay the entire sum for fixing their mistake.
2. Public liability insurance
Public liability insurance can help a designer as many incidents could happen that injure their client or damage their personal property. To envision the final design of a room, the designer must first see it. From this point on, they must set up regular meetings with their clients and visit the project site to ensure that everything is being set up accordingly. All of this reflects on how many contacts they have with the customer, and as a result, there is more of a risk that an accident could happen. For example, they could get red paint on the existing furniture when showing shade samples to the customer.
Or, they could knock over an antique ornament when measuring the wall area, or they could arrange an appointment for the client to come to the office building where they consequently trip over a cable and hurt their knee. These accidents would require replacing the destroyed furniture, or medical evaluation and public liability insurance would provide a payout for this.
3. Business building and contents insurance
Business building and contents insurance can be bought separately, but it is a wise idea to search for insurers that offer these policies hand-in-hand. Business building insurance can financially recompensate a designer that has had their office building vandalised, or even worse, entirely damaged by a flood, fire or heavy storm. This destruction can often cost thousands of pounds to rectify the damage because a building is costly to rebuild, even if it is only partially destroyed.
Similarly, business contents insurance typically covers the furniture, equipment and belongings inside the building if they were stolen or damaged in a natural disaster event. Without insurance, an interior designer would have to pay for the fixation of these damages. If they failed to do so, they would have no office to set up meetings in, no computer to communicate with clients, and no equipment or materials to plan for upcoming projects.
4. Commercial vehicle insurance
Commercial vehicle insurance is beneficial for an interior design business because a lot of the work requires driving to the clients and assessing the property they want to design, whether a residential building like a client’s home or a commercial one like a shop or a shop hotel. Moreover, each interior designer could potentially have tens of clients at any given time, so having a car to drive to each of these places quickly is key to building a trustworthy reputation.
Commercial vehicle insurance recompensates designers for any expenditures concerning the business car covered under the policy, like replacing a tire should it flatten on the way to a site or even repairing someone else’s car if they were involved in a crash. Commercial vehicle insurance is cheaper when the car is used only for business purposes or only one person is covered under the policy. Still, it is worthwhile to research additional policies like joint business and recreational vehicle covers if you are interested in it.
5. Employer’s liability insurance
Employer’s liability insurance is unnecessary for independent interior designers, like sole traders. Still, most designers work as a part of a business or hire other employees like painters and decorators and hence must obtain this cover because they hire workers. This insurance is of great assistance to employees because they protect their health and not their property, unlike most other covers.
If an interior designer were to get injured at work under any number of circumstances, like dropping a kitchen chair on their foot whilst moving it and requiring medical evaluation or causing damage to their back after years of consecutively crouching over or bending to get accurate measurements, employers liability insurance would recompensate them for any treatment they may need because their injuries were caused as a result of their work.
Interior Designer Insurance
In conclusion, interior designers could suffer from a series of accidents that may physically harm them or their clients and cause substantial financial loss, which would be detrimental to the development of the business. Having interior designer insurance protects a designer from paying the total amount against these claims, so acquiring these covers is of great value.
Find out more about the importance of insurance here.
Other useful links about Business Insurance:
Churchill Business Insurance
Hiscox Business Insurance
Remember to Compare Your Business Costs is here to help your business every step of the way from business advice, or saving you time and money on your business purchases such as:
Ally Cox is a dedicated Copywriter and Blogger for CompareYourBusinessCosts.co.uk. In under two years, the platform achieved the esteemed accolade of ‘Website of the Year’. Since its award-winning debut, Ally has been instrumental in fostering organic growth for the website, expanding its offerings to encompass comparisons across a diverse range of over 20 products to help serve all your business needs.