Self-Employment: Is Your Insurance Enough?

When you’re a self-employed business owner, it can be difficult to determine what cover your business needs. This article will give you an overview of the features of your business that impact what types of self-employment insurance your business will need, and how many types of insurance are available to you. For insurance for your business, get a tailored quote from Brisco Business.

Do I Need Self-Employed Business Insurance?

Whether you need self-employed business insurance will depend on if you employ people, and if so, how many people you employ, whether you have shareholders other than yourself and if you employ members of staff who are key to the business operations. The type of business insurance you may need will also depend on the type of business that you run, the assets that the business holds, and the products and services provided by the business.

Number of Employees

The number of employees that your business has will determine your need for certain types of insurance. For example, if you employ people, you must have insurance to cover pay compensation for employees injured while doing their job. If you have employees who travel abroad as part of your business operations, then you will also need to consider business travel insurance.

Type of Business

The type of business that you operate has an impact on whether the business will need professional indemnity insurance, public liability insurance or credit insurance. Get a quote at Brisco Business Insurance to determine what cover your business needs.

Business Assets

Depending on the assets that your business possesses, you may need cover such as motor insurance (if your business uses vehicles), buildings and contents insurance (if you own or lease a property used as business premises), goods-in-transit insurance (if you send stock around the country) and equipment insurance (to cover the cost of replacing it).

Business Products and Services

Finally, the type of self-employed business insurance you need also depends on the products or services that your business provides. You may need loss of income insurance to cover you against the risk of non-paying customers, product liability insurance if you make goods, or professional indemnity insurance if you provide professional advice to clients.

What Types of Self-Employed Business Insurance are there?

Most types of self-employed insurance fall into one of four categories: protection against liabilities, protecting assets, protecting business income and protecting people.

Protection Against Liabilities

As a self-employed business owner, you may need certain types of self-employed liability insurance as protection against liabilities.

For example, professional indemnity insurance covers the cost of compensation and legal fees if one of your clients suffers a financial loss as a result of a mistake that you or an employee has made. This type of insurance is suitable for doctors, solicitors, engineers, journalists, financial advisers, architects and more.

Another type of self-employed liability insurance is employers’ liability insurance. This is legally required if your business employs people, and covers the cost of compensation and legal fees should an employee make a claim that is for an injury or illness as a result of work.

In addition to this, your business may also need public liability insurance, which insures your business against mistakes made that can cause injury or damage to a customer or member of the public. This is useful for businesses that host customers or clients at their premises, for example shop owners. For some businesses it is a legal requirement.

If your business makes goods, then you make also need a type of self-employed liability insurance called product liability insurance, which insures you against damage or injury that has occurred as a result of goods that you have made, sold or repaired.

Protecting Assets

You may also wish to protect the assets of your business, including any property or equipment the business owns, vehicles and goods in transit.

Buildings and contents insurance covers the cost of damage or loss of assets from a business premises as a result of fire, flooding, theft and more. This is often not compulsory, but may be a requirement of a landlord or lender.

You may want to consider equipment insurance if your business owns expensive kit and machinery. This type of insurance can cover the cost of replacing equipment or tools. This is especially important to consider if your business uses machinery that it cannot operate without, or if the machinery is especially valuable.

Protecting Revenue

Another important aspect of self-employment insurance is protecting the business’ revenue. This can come in the form of credit insurance, business interruption insurance or reducing costs with legal expenses insurance.

Credit insurance insures businesses against the risk of non-paying or bankrupt customers. This ensures peace of mind for business owners, although most providers will only cover you for up to 80%.

You may want to consider business interruption insurance, which covers the costs incurred by the business in the even of a flood, fire or other disaster. The cover also typically covers you for a loss of profits as a result of the disaster.

Legal expenses insurance doesn’t protect the business’ revenue, but it covers the costs of solicitors’ fees and court costs should an employee or customer take the business to court.

We Are Brisco

Brisco Business Insurance is here to find tailored solutions to our clients’ business insurance needs. We can identify the types of insurance that are relevant for your business, and gather competitive quotes for insuring your business.

Check out our website for more information about our services, and compare quotes online  for your business.

Dean Laming

Dean is a Chartered Insurance Broker with more than 25 years insurance experience. Through various underwriting, operational and management roles, Dean has built up extensive knowledge of how to run a business and is now Managing Director of Brisco Business, part of the wider Henry Seymour Group.

All articles by Dean Laming