Can Tattoo Shop Insurance Cover Other Treatments?
By Maria Hickey on October 3rd, 2022
If you own and operate a tattoo shop, then protecting yourself and your business with the right tattoo shop insurance should be one of your main concerns.
The type of insurance cover you will need for your tattoo shop will depend on whether or not you offer treatments or services other than straight-up tattoos. Many tattoo artists will diversify their business by offering related treatments such as permanent or semi-permanent make-up such as eyeliner, lip liner, eyebrow feathering, or eyebrow microblading, as it is otherwise called.
Other tattoo artists will operate salons that offer traditional beauty treatments. This is where you need to be careful about arranging your insurance cover to protect you from the additional risks that come with these services.
Does Tattoo Shop Insurance Cover Other Beauty Treatments?
To build a perfect policy, tattoo shop insurance will be made up of different elements. What is included in your policy will depend on many factors, such as if you offer beauty treatments, employ staff, including volunteers and work experience students, and if you own or rent your business premises.
If you run a mobile tattoo or beauty therapy business, it can help to protect yourself with self-employed beauty therapist insurance or mobile beauty therapist insurance.
Public liability insurance is one essential insurance that every tattoo shop owner should invest in. As you will be working directly with the public with a hands-on role, there are many health and safety risks that your tattoo shop customers will be exposed to that you will need to insure yourself against.
Public liability insurance is something all business owners should take out – it is not exclusive to tattoo shop artists only. If you offer other beauty treatments, you should ensure that your tattoo shop insurance covers all the services you provide with extra beauty insurance.
Do I Need Different Treatment Risk Insurance to Cover Different Beauty Treatments?
While public liability insurance should be your number one choice of insurance protection to have in place, you shouldn’t stop there. Tattoo shop owners often overlook treatment risk insurance, especially if they run a salon offering tattoos and other beauty treatments.
It is often assumed that public liability insurance will cover your business from every type of customer claim, which isn’t the case. Should a customer be unhappy with their tattoo or have a bad reaction to any products used during a beauty treatment, treatment risk insurance would cover insurance for beauty treatments – not public liability insurance.
What Kinds of Beauty Treatments Can Tattoo Shop Public Liability Cover?
The public liability element of your tattoo shop insurance policy will protect you against customer claims for accidents and injuries sustained on your business premises. For example, should a customer slip and break their wrist because of a wet floor or some spilt product, such as skin sanitiser or moisturiser, your public liability insurance will cover your legal and compensation claims.
This insurance will also cover you against customer claims for damaged personal possessions. For example, suppose a customer has a leg wax, and you or one of your beauty therapists accidentally drops or spills some hot wax onto a customer’s clothing, shoes or handbag; the costs of cleaning, repairing or replacing the damaged items will be covered by your public liability insurance.
Beauty therapy insurance goes much further than public liability, so it is worth looking at adding extra cover if you plan to extend your range of services to include beauty treatments.
What Kinds of Insurance Do I Need For My Tattoo Shop?
One thing to note is that in the UK, all tattoo-shop owner’s premises must be covered by a license before they can legally operate the business. This licence is obtained from your local council’s licencing department, and you must have at least a basic public liability insurance cover to obtain a licence.
Other than public liability insurance, there are other forms of protection that you should take out to cover your needs. These include:
Building Contents Cover:
Content insurance isn’t a legal requirement, but it should be considered vital protection against emergencies such as a devastating fire or flood or should your essential equipment be stolen and your property vandalised by criminals.
Your business contents insurance will cover the costs of repairs and refurbishments to your property and replace any essential tools and equipment lost, stolen or damaged beyond repair. Without contents insurance, you could find it financially impossible to cover the costs of getting your business back up and running again following any of these events.
Employer’s Liability Insurance:
Employers’ liability insurance is required by UK law if you employ staff in your tattoo shop. Even if you only employ part-time staff, temporary staff to cover holidays, volunteers or unpaid staff on work experience, you are required by law to be covered by employer’s liability insurance.
This insurance is for the protection of both you and your staff. Should any of your employees make a compensation claim against your business for an accident, injury or illness sustained while working for your business, your employer’s liability insurance will cover your legal costs and any compensation settlements you will need to pay out.
Income Protection Insurance:
Most tattoo artists are self-employed, so this means there is no employer’s safety net to fall back on in the form of statutory sick pay should you fall ill or have an accident that prevents you from being able to work.
Income protection insurance provides invaluable help to keep money coming in to cover your bills when you need to take an extended period off work due to injury or illness. Many self-employed beautician insurance policies will include income protection insurance as part of the cover. Hence, as a self-employed tattoo artist, it makes sense to protect yourself with this cover.
Like any other self-employed person, you don’t earn money if you don’t work. Accidents happen, and people get sick every day, so taking out income protection insurance can be a wise move to help with your finances while you concentrate on your recovery.
Property Insurance:
Unless you own the premises you operate your tattoo shop from, you may not need commercial building insurance. However, if you rent your business premises from a commercial landlord, it is worth talking to them about what property insurance they have in place and what they expect you as a tenant to cover in the event of a fire or flood.
If you own the building, you will need building insurance to protect you against the risk of losing your premises to a devastating fire or being severely damaged by flooding or storm damage.
It would help if you also considered fixtures and fitting insurance. Many business owners assume that replacing fixtures and fittings comes under standard building insurance cover. However, this may not be the case.
As a tattoo shop owner that rents your premises, you may want to install more fixtures and fittings that your commercial landlord won’t include in their property insurance coverage. In this case, you may consider adding fixtures and fittings insurance to your tattoo shop insurance policy.
Treatment Risk / Public Liability Insurance:
As mentioned previously, public liability insurance is a must when you are in an industry that deals directly with members of the public. You have a responsibility towards your customers to not only deliver an outstanding service but also protect them and keep them safe while on your premises and undergoing treatments.
As well as having well-planned health and safety policies in place, you should also ensure you protect your livelihood with the proper amount of tattoo-shop insurance, including public liability and treatment risk insurance. If you plan on extending your range of services, then adding extra beauty therapist insurance would be sensible.
No matter how careful you or your tattoo shop staff are around your customers, accidents happen and should a customer decide to claim compensation for an injury sustained while on your premises, you can have great peace of mind knowing that you are protected by public liability insurance.
Conclusion
When arranging your tattoo shop insurance, there isn’t a simple one-size-fits-all solution that will meet all your requirements. This is why it makes sense to work with a business insurance team with plenty of expertise in building perfect insurance policies for their clients.
Our dedicated team at Brisco can help you compare insurance quotes from the UK’s leading insurers to build an ideal tattoo shop insurance policy to meet your needs. Whether you only intend to offer tattoos exclusively or you plan to add more beauty treatments to your business in the future, we can help you find the best cover available at the best price.
Tattoo shop insurance is there to protect you and your business. It always pays to be safe than sorry, so don’t delay! Get a quote online or contact our team at Brisco Business today.
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