The fact is, almost every professional should consider indemnity insurance cover. No matter what your field of expertise, the decisions you make in a professional capacity can affect your clients both immediately and for years to come. Here are a few more professions that you may be surprised to realise can benefit from professional indemnity cover:

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Automotive Technicians

When you change the brakes or tyres on a client’s car, you’re putting that client’s safety in your own hands. A bad tyre or botched brake job may result in more than just an expensive repair, even if the problem is caused not by your work, but by a problem with the tyres or brakes you installed. Carrying professional indemnity cover can protect your business finances in the event that your work results in harm to a client.

Pet Groomers

People take their pets seriously, and no one knows that more than professional pet groomers. If Fido accidentally swallows a flea treatment while in your care, or if FiFi’s ear is mangled by your clippers, you may find yourself on the receiving end of an expensive lawsuit by a disgruntled pet-parent. Professional indemnity cover can protect your business finances should a mistake or error result in harm to a beloved pet.

Wedding Planners

Today’s weddings are often affairs that incur costs into the tens of thousands or more. Just one mistake on the wedding planner’s part can result in more than just a raging bridezilla – it could incur civil charges. Carrying professional indemnity cover can help protect your assets should the venue you’ve secured turn out to be a dud, or the caterer you recommend infect the wedding party with a food-borne bacteria.

Caterers/Bakers/Chefs

Speaking of caterers, food professionals such as bakers, chefs, caterers and others should always carry professional indemnity cover.  Food-borne illnesses, food allergies, and other risks inherent to serving food can result in expensive civil or even criminal claims that could financially devastate you and destroy your business.

Dance/Fitness/Martial Arts Instructors

Teaching dance or martial arts, or leading aerobic or other exercise classes means subjecting your clients to strenuous activities. Despite your best efforts to inform clients of the risks and minimize the possibility of an injury, your clients can nevertheless be harmed while receiving your instruction. An injury that could be blamed on your instruction or guidance could wreck havoc both on your professional reputation and your income and assets. Professional indemnity insurance helps to protect your business from the costs of such claims.

This list could go on and on. In an increasingly litigious society, all professionals who offer their services to the public do so at a risk to their own financial well-being. A professional indemnity insurance policy can help you with the legal and other costs of protecting yourself against criminal or civil claims arising from your services or advice. Talk to an insurance representative or insurance agent for more information and to obtain professional indemnity quotes.

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Conducting business in a world where our every movement is recorded and available for viewing demands professional indemnity insurance cover.

Professional Information Out of Control

Regardless of your professional field, you likely rely on digital communications, including email, social networking, and texting on a daily basis. The ability to shoot off an email or IM in mere seconds unfortunately means that we often hit “send” before giving a great deal of thought of whom could potentially see our messages.  What’s more, even internal networks that operate behind a firewall can be compromised, allowing information about clients and employees alike to be stolen.

The casual nature of digital communications can result in strangers, colleagues or clients gaining access to information intended to be confidential. From sensitive client information that is inadvertently sent to the wrong Jane Smith to instances of identity theft stemming from your employees or subcontractors, the potential for data leaks is becoming ever more threatening. When information falls into the wrong hands, professional indemnity insurance can keep a digital error from becoming an expensive faux pas.

Your Professional Data Trail

No one is right 100% of the time, or immune to lapses in judgment. The chances of a client or co-worker remembering word-for-word every face-to-face exchange or phone call are nil, but when we use digital means to communicate, the evidence rarely disappears. As we become increasingly dependent on digital communications, we are also creating a record of all our quirks and errors, which can come back to haunt us.

Since abandoning the emails, IMs, text messages and tweets that have become so ingrained in our professional lives is unthinkable, professional indemnity insurance is the best protection from the financial repercussions of an email giving ill-judged advice or a text message sent in jest that the recipient does not find amusing.

Your Personal Life as a Professional Issue

More and more, modern life takes place as much online as it does in “real life.” Unfortunately, this means that our behaviour outside work hours bleeds into our professional lives, as well. If we’re well-behaved, that’s great, but when we’re not, it’s often posted to Facebook, Twitter, or someone’s Tumblr instantly.

When your credibility is comprimised due to a risque photo or inappropriate text, clients or co-workers’ credibility – and business – may suffer, as well. Having a professional indemnity insurance policy can offset the cost of defending yourself against claims that your besmirched reputation has damaged your employer, clients or co-workers.

Digital communications have blurred the lines between professional and personal lives, between private and public conversations. Carrying professional indemnity cover is the best way to protect yourself from the repercussions of overexposure.

Before you kiss your working years and your professional indemnity cover goodbye, reconsider. Keeping a professional indemnity policy for life can help protect your retirement income from disappearing should you be party to a lawsuit stemming from incidents that occurred while you were still employed.

If you’re skeptical about the need for maintaining professional indemnity cover throughout your life, consider these points:

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Past Incidents May Come Back to Haunt You

You may be retired, but that does not mean that the decisions that you or employees working under your supervision made while you were still working no longer affect your clients. If a client discovers a mistake you made ten years after you made it, even years into your retirement, that doesn’t mean that you are absolved of any responsibility.

You will still be responsible for any legal costs of a professional indemnity claim – including fees for your defense and any judgments awarded to the person making the claims – even though your income is likely to be lower than during your working years. The statute of limitations for a client to file criminal or civil charges may last long into your retirement, making professional liability cover as important an insurance policy for professionals as health insurance or car insurance.

Professional Indemnity Cover is Not Retroactive

Many professionals mistakenly assume that if they carried professional indemnity cover at the time of an alleged mistake, criminal act, or other covered incident, that they are covered when the incident is brought to light. This can be an expensive mistake to make. Professional indemnity cover is only viable as long as you keep the insurance; therefore, past coverage will not cover you for current charges, even if the event happened during the time you had cover. Buying a policy now, however, may cover you; professional indemnity policies are available that are retroactive, covering actions from years past.

Offering Free Advice or Aid May Get You in Trouble

Helping a neighbour with his taxes, or rendering first aid to an injured person, often comes as second nature to professionals who have retired. However, doing so without carrying professional indemnity cover leaves you open to financial costs should your aid or advice result in harm. Furthermore, if you plan to volunteer your services to an organization during your retirement, you may be exposing yourself to even more risk if you opt not to carry professional indemnity cover.

If you needed professional indemnity cover during your working years, it would be sensible to carry this insurance for life.  Retirement is no guarantee that past decisions will not result in criminal or civil charges, and advice or aid rendered in a non-professional setting may nevertheless leave you open to risk. Carry professional indemnity cover for life to protect your income and assets into your golden years.

Since planning the 21st century wedding is often too much for even the most dedicated couple to handle alone, an army of wedding planners, caterers, dressmakers and photographers is employed to help make the day perfect.

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The “Perfect” Wedding

If you’re in the wedding services industry, you know (too well, perhaps) how important it is to your clients that everything go smoothly on their big day. Should the cake slip off its tiers on the way to the reception, the reception hall experience an air conditioning failure, or the air conditioning leak all over the wedding cake, you’ve got an expensive problem on your hands, one even more daunting than facing the bride to give the bad news!

Professional indemnity insurance may be advantageous for those who provide wedding services. With the costs associated with the bride and groom’s wedding day often as high as some people’s yearly salary, it’s no exaggeration to say that a mess of a dress or a ruined reception could lead to a legal claim and thus eat into your profits.

Should the disgruntled bride and groom – or their parents, who may be footing the bill – decide that the problem was due to negligence or even criminal activity on your part, the costs may include legal representation, not to mention any damages that may be awarded.

Why You Need Professional Indemnity Insurance

Carrying professional indemnity cover can protect your earnings and assets should an aspect of the wedding that you helped to arrange prove to be less than what the bride and groom were expecting, due to a mistake, omission, or miscommunication on your part or on the part of one of your employees (or venues, or suppliers…).

Even if you pride yourself on providing the best possible service for the brides and grooms who are your clients, there is much that is out of your control. Venues you contract can develop problems unknown to you. Your digital camera, holding every single picture you took of the wedding and reception, could be stolen on the way from the reception. An accident could befall you on the way to the reception with the wedding cake. Professional indemnity insurance can make sure that your profits and assets are not plundered should anything go awry on the most important day of your clients’ life together.

If you’re in the wedding services industry, operating without professional indemnity cover is a risk to your company’s financial future. After all – you never know what could happen, but you do know that the happy couple won’t be so happy if it happens on their special day! The cost of indemnity insurance may be worth it if it protects your business from paying out-of-pocket on such claims.

If you don’t yet have professional indemnity cover, you may want more information about this important type of business insurance policy. Professional indemnity insurance may be useful for public relations agencies, who bear a heavy burden of responsibility when it comes influencing clients’ fortunes.

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You Control Your Clients’ Destiny

It’s no exaggeration to say that as a public relations agency, you are responsible for your presenting your clients to the world. As such, the way that you present your clients may influence their chances of success for years to come. Give your clients poor advice, design a PR campaign that backfires, or broadcast misleading information that damages a client’s reputation, and you could be in trouble – these are costly errors to make, both for PR agencies and their clients.

A misstep on your agency’s part may affect your clients’ earning power, and, they may, in turn, bring civil or criminal charges against your agency that could affect your finances, as well. A professional indemnity insurance policy can handle civil or criminal claims that come your way as a result of your actions.

You Represent Your Agency

As PR professionals, you and the employees of your agency may travel to your clients’ sites, sharing ideas and materials face-to-face. Doing so is good business, but visiting your clients on-site also means that your agency may need professional indemnity insurance for further potential claims. When agency employees are off-site, they are out of sight of supervisors who could possibly prevent any errors or omissions. A professional indemnity policy protects the agency and individual supervisors from mistakes or even criminal actions made by employees.

You Are Responsible for Subcontractors

You may design the ad campaign, but unless your company does everything in-house, your agency may not be handling the printing of adverts, the erection of billboards, the video production team that makes the commercials, and so on.  However, if you choose the subcontractors who carry out the services that you provide for your clients, you will often be held responsible for their actions if they make an expensive mistake.

You can reduce your financial risk by carrying professional indemnity insurance, which protects you against decisions – such as hiring a subcontractor – that prove costly to your clients. Even a subcontractor you’ve always had great experiences with can mess up an assignment, so you may want to look into how your business would handle such a claim.

PR agencies have an awesome responsibility when it comes to their clients, influencing their image and reputation in the public eye for years to come. If you care about your clients — and about your agency’s assets and revenue — then obtaining professional indemnity cover may be part of your approach to taking that responsibility seriously.

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It may be tempting, but don’t scrimp when it comes to your professional indemnity insurance policy. If you don’t have a policy, consider whether your profession makes this a sensible thing to purchase. And if you do have one, don’t put your current and future earnings at risk by underestimating the amount of cover you need.

Why PI Insurance is Important

If you’ve dropped professional indemnity insurance cover in an effort to cut down on your expenses, you’re treading on risky ground. Working without professional indemnity cover leaves you and your business vulnerable to the costs of potential legal claims.

Professional indemnity cover will protect your earnings and other assets in the event that you or an employee under your supervision makes a mistake, or is accused of doing so. The legal fees alone required to defend yourself against action resulting from civil or criminal charges could be financially devastating, never mind the costs of satisfying any judgments that could result from legal action.

You probably wouldn’t open your business without insurance to cover the building and its contents, or to cover people who come to your premises – professional indemnity cover is just as important in terms of protection from potential future expenses.

Adequate Professional Indemnity Cover

If you are carrying professional indemnity cover, make sure it is sufficient for your needs. Underestimating the amount of professional indemnity insurance you need is almost as risky as working without PI insurance, as you may thereby leave a gap between what your insurance will pay for and any fees resulting from civil or criminal action.

It’s difficult to give a blanket recommendation of how much professional indemnity coverage you need; a good place to start for guidance is a professional organization. Check whether there are any limits imposed by legal mandate requiring you to carry professional indemnity cover, if applicable. Other factors to take into consideration when purchasing this insurance are the amount of business and personal debt you have, your yearly take-home earnings, the total costs of any contracts you have, and other costs that are imperative to your income.

Re-Evaluate Your PI Cover Periodically

Your professional indemnity insurance needs will change throughout your business’ lifetime. When you add employees or downsize, go into debt for a new business or sell your business, or even take on larger contracts, your insurance policies should be adjusted accordingly.

Consider Talking to an Insurance Professional

If you’re unsure that you’re carrying the right amount of professional indemnity insurance cover, you may want to talk to an insurance professional for advice. Make sure your cover is right for your professional and personal needs, and above all, don’t underestimate your professional indemnity insurance – it’s designed to protect your business’ finances.

In fact, private tutors may benefit from professional indemnity insurance just as much as doctors or accountants. Considering the nature of your work, there are many reasons why you might consider professional indemnity insurance to protect you from civil or criminal investigation and legal action. Consider the following questions:

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Are You Meeting Your Clients’ Expectations?

You may not be making life-or-death decisions for your clients, but your clients (or their parents) are entrusting you to make a measurable difference to their skill level in an activity or field of study. Fail to help your clients improve as they expected –increase their exam scores, get into the university of their choice, improve their academic abilities, or gain valuable business skills, for example– and you may find that your clients or their guardians seek legal recourse to recover the funds they spent on your services.

Professional indemnity insurance may prevent you from having to pay the actual and legal costs yourself if a court decides that you failed to provide adequate instruction.

Is Your Own Training Up To Date?

Sure, you may be confident in your ability to assist nursing students to pass their licensing exams, or to help would-be accountants expand their knowledge.  Unless you have pursued continuing education opportunities since you earned your credentials, however, your students may find that your tuition is out-of-date.

It’s always a good idea to keep learning more about the field in which you tutor clients. At the same time, a professional indemnity insurance policy may protect your finances in the event that an important change in your field affects your ability to tutor clients appropriately, and hence leads to a legal claim against your tutoring business.

Are Your Clients Minors?

For many professional tutors, assisting young students with their academic careers is what makes the job worthwhile. However, working with people below the legal age of majority is fraught with risk; should a child be harmed, even accidentally, while under your tutelage, the result could be an expensive civil or criminal investigation.

Furthermore, although it is an uncomfortable subject to bring up, any hint of improper action on your part toward a young and vulnerable client could be devastating to your professional reputation and to your finances. If any of your clients are minors, tutoring them without professional indemnity insurance increases your risk of financial ruin each time you are alone with an underage client.

Do You Work Unsupervised?

As a private tutor, you may be working unsupervised, alone with your clients. Doing so may seem imperative to assisting your clients, as it facilitates the quiet study and mental focus required for a quality learning experience. However, it also means that it’s a your-word-against-theirs situation should you be accused of any wrongdoing, or should a client come to harm while you are together.

You may choose to make it your policy never to work alone with clients, or you may decide to take professional indemnity insurance to protect your business finances in case of a legal claim .

Whether tutoring is your main source of income, or just something you do for extra cash, you may want to think about whether you and your business could benefit from the protection of professional indemnity insurance.

The service that advertising agencies provide to their clients can be a great help to businesses, but professionals in Australia are held highly accountable for their actions, and client businesses may bring legal action against an advertising agency if they believe the agency has caused a loss to the business.

Advertising agencies, whether a large company or a home business, should consider professional indemnity insurance cover, as an advertising campaign or strategy may represent a significant investment on the part of their clients, and hence there could be significant losses if things go wrong. If you’re confused as to what professional indemnity cover can do for your agency, consider these points:

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Even the Best Plans Can Go Wrong

Say one of your clients asks you to create an advertising campaign for a special promotion that offers a product for $250.00. Through some communication breakdown or an error at the printer, the advertised price is, instead, $150.00. A huge difference, obviously, and one that will cost your client dearly.

This type of error may lead to an exodus of disgruntled customers  vowing never to shop with your client again. This scenario is simplified, yes, but any time a mistake or miscommunication on your part costs your client money, your client may ask you to cover their loss. Professional indemnity insurance can help to protect you from the cost of such mistakes.

Your Subcontractors Are Your Reputation

Let’s revisit the example above again. Maybe the mistake that resulted in your client’s product being advertised at $150.00 when the real cost was $250.00 happened not at your office, but at the print shop you use for your print advertisement needs. No one at your office caught the mistake, because you use a contracted courier service to deliver your print advertisement inserts to the local newspapers.

In both cases, the problem was due to subcontractors that you use in your business, but the responsibility to manage subcontractors and eliminate errors lies with your business. Professional indemnity insurance may cover losses to your client whether it is your own business or a subcontractor who is at fault.

Professional Indemnity Insurance Gives Your Clients Peace of Mind

Even if you never use professional indemnity insurance, just being able to tell potential clients that you are covered in the event of a mistake that costs them money makes your agency attractive. The fact that your agency has the foresight to insure its work is a plus in the client’s eyes.

Show potential clients that your agency is reputable and responsible by informing them of your professional indemnity insurance cover. It’s a great selling point – but you already knew that, right?

Professional indemnity insurance cover is worth considering for nearly anyone who offers a service to the public, but may be of particular interest to advertising agencies, whose work influences clients’ financial future in a very obvious way. Talk to your insurer, agent or broker if you think public liability insurance could benefit your business.

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Every day, the news features stories about professionals who are facing civil or criminal charges. From teachers to councillors to the head of a multi-million dollar company, if professionals facing work-related legal claims don’t have professional indemnity insurance, they may have to cover all the costs themselves.

Greater Shepparton Councillor Faces Misconduct Charges

In 2010 the Local Government Inspectorate, through the Department of Planning and Community Development, brought a case against Greater Shepparton councillor Milvan Muto, accusing the councilman of failing to abide by council policies and behaving in a rude, abusive or inappropriate manner. In February 2011, Muto announced that the matter had been resolved, but that the details were subject to a confidentiality agreement.

Facing civil charges of misconduct is a possibility for any professional, not just an elected official. Every professional, from elected officials to doctors to librarians, should consider taking out professional indemnity insurance, which may help to cover the costs of defending a misconduct charge and of financial settlements that may be awarded to the applicant.

Teacher Banned Due to Misused Facebook Photos

In September 2011, a teacher in Wales who used baby pictures stolen from Facebook to make her ex-boyfriend think they had a baby together was banned from working in the classroom for two years. Victoria Jones, 23,  a nursery school teacher,  admitted to taking 82 photographs of a baby girl from Facebook, then pretending the photos were of her own baby.

Jones was found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct by the General Teaching Council for Wales. She was also charged with compromising her position of trust and bringing the school into disrepute, though she was cleared of these charges.

Although Jones was represented in the case by a union representative, had the school chosen to implicate her on legal charges, or insist that she have legal counsel, she would have been responsible for the costs incurred. A professional indemnity insurance policy could have helped to cover the costs if a case like this was taken to court.

Clothing Retailer Faces Sexual Harassment Charges

American Apparel founder Dov Charney is facing charges that he sexually harassed his former store manager Irene Morales. Morales alleges that Charney subjected her to “extreme psychological abuse and torment” from the time she started working as a shop assistant until her eventual resignation. Morales has also alleged that Charney held her captive in his apartment for a period of hours, and forced her to perform sexual acts.

Defending a sexual harassment lawsuit can be financially draining. Sexual harassment cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute, sometimes taking years to come trial – years during which those defending themselves incur expenses for legal counsel and other fees associated with their defence. And if any damages are awarded to the person alleging harassment, the costs can skyrocket. A professional indemnity insurance policy helps to cover both the costs of defending a lawsuit and the damages that may be awarded.

No matter whether you’re a wealthy executive or a teacher, defending yourself against charges of misconduct can be expensive. Carrying professional indemnity insurance may protect your income and assets from civil or criminal charges arising from professional decisions you’ve made, or personal decisions that affect your employment.

References:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-02-25/councillor-says-misconduct-case-resolved/1956924

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-15032856

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/09/american-apparel-dov-charney-harassment

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32104790@N02/4397409719/

Image by Nic McPhee

It is advised that professional writers and journalist carry professional indemnity insurance. In addition to basic coverage, depending on the ins and outs of your job, you may wish to add additional coverage for further protection.

What “Dangers” Does a Writer Need Protection Against?

As a writer, your word is your reputation. However, the written word is very powerful and what you write can have immense ramifications. Journalists and seasoned writers know that not everyone is going to be happy with what you write, and in some cases, they may even bring in the law if they feel they are victims of a bona fide case of slander.

We do have freedom of speech, but we are not allowed to go around saying whatever we want about people – as this can have a negative consequence for that person in their life. Being accused of doing so is bad enough, worse still is having to foot the bill to fight the case in a court of law. Even if you win, you are out a lot of time and money.

Though writers are careful, it is possible for one to partake in what is called “unintentional plagiarism”, which is the truly unintentional use of someone else’s ideas.

If you are an “on the beat” type writer, you interview people, or otherwise work with the public to do your work, you are also at risk. If, at any time, a person is injured or a loss of property is incurred while you are working at a location, there is a chance you could be held liable for it.

How to Protect Yourself and Your Career

This might make being a writer sound a lot less appealing and a lot more dangerous than it really is. But when your reputation and livelihood are at stake, it is best to be prepared. A professional indemnity policy will help protect you in the event of a lawsuit as a result of your work.

Additional coverage such as public liability insurance is a great option for those who interact with the public during the course of their work. This protects you from expenses in the event of loss or injury. For those who have a lot of equipment, such as expensive cameras, mobile devices, computers, etc., extra insurance to cover your equipment is also recommended.

While it might not seem like an industry rife with controversy and lawsuits, writers do still have to protect themselves from loss. Professional indemnity insurance is highly recommended for writers as it helps protect your livelihood in the event of the unexpected.