Anyone who provides a professional service could have complaints from their clients. So if you’re a freelancer that offers a service, gives advice or has a professional duty of care, you might want to consider professional indemnity insurance for your business.
It also covers contractual disputes with clients. If you deliver a piece of work and your client isn’t happy, they may demand compensation or want to take you to court. For example, they may argue loss of income because you did not fulfil the contract.
If a client claims legal damages due to advice or services that a freelancer provided, professional indemnity policy steps in. A PI policy pays compensation and costs to the client, plus provides a team of legal experts to defend the freelancer. This includes out of court settlements.
Giving advice
If you are accused of providing poor advice by a client, they could start a claim against you for things going wrong.
Making a mistake
If you’re accused of being negligent in your work or don’t complete it to the standard set out in the brief or contract.
Copyright infringement
If you use content, such as music or images, without consent or with UK permission when you needed worldwide, you may breach intellectual property rights.
False claims
If you make false, negative or damaging claims about an organisation, person, business or client.
Causing loss of income
If someone experiences a financial loss, personal injury or property damage due to your advice, error or negligence.
Breach of confidential information
If you share sensitive information about a person or business without their consent.
If you are a freelance creative consultant, you are most likely giving advice, working to briefs and handling commercially sensitive data about your clients. To cover yourself against claims of negligence for making mistakes, poor advice and breaching confidence, professional indemnity insurance might be worth considering.
Public liability insurance covers your compensation or defence costs if you were to cause injury to a member of the public or damage to their property. Whereas professional indemnity insurance is to cover complaints about your work, advice or contract breaches. Read more about public liability insurance here.
You can add on professional indemnity cover to your Create policy from £123.20* a year, or split the cost over 12 months interest free instalments with Hiscox. Simply buy it online when you create your quote or, if you are already a Create customer, get in touch to add it to your policy.
Create Insurance is a trading name of BHIB Limited. Registered office is AGM House, 3 Barton Close, Grove Park, Enderby, Leicester LE19 1SJ. BHIB Limited is registered in England and Wales number 829660. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under registration number 116675. For more details you can check the Financial Services Register by visiting www.fca.org.uk. We are covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service. You can find out more at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
*All premiums quoted include Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) at the prevailing rate
**Examples on this page are for illustrative purposes only and are based on the assumption of purchasing certain products and levels of cover
***Any insurance payments are subject to the terms and conditions of your policy