professional indemnity insurance for freelancers

Written By: Kevin S. Salin on December 10, 2011 No Comment

professional indemnity insurance for freelancers

Article by John Corr

People sell their knowledge and skills in every profession. The possibility of a slip-up is inherent in this pattern of dispensation of wisdom. When someone is working as a freelancer in any profession, however confident he is of his ability in the field, he will be better equipped to do his job if he is armed with business professional liability insurance.

Freelancing encompasses a wide variety of jobs these days. There are videographers, graphic designers, interior designers, architects, photojournalists, marketers, writes, and photographers working as freelancers today. Inadvertent mistakes can creep up into the work of any one of these service providers and if the disgruntled client makes a claim against them, they will be badly in need of professional indemnity insurance for defending themselves in the court and paying the client if his claim is established. Even someone like a social worker, who is supposed to be voluntarily helping others, is risking his neck when he is offering that help. If a client felt that he was not in need of that help, the social worker’s refuge, in order to defend himself, will be business professional liability insurance.

The premium that a freelancer has to pay for his professional indemnity insurance is influenced by different factors. Since people are into different types of freelancing jobs, the risk involved in each are different. So the protection required, and accordingly the premium will also vary. Another factor that will influence the cost of individual professional indemnity insurance is the annual turnover of the company in which the freelancer is employed. The cost of business professional liability insurance will also vary based on whether the freelancer is working through an agency or directly. The cost is bound to be lower for those employed through an agency.

In certain industries in which freelancers are very much in demand, some clients may not even sign the contract unless the freelancer has professional indemnity insurance. Software development is one of the fields where those who give work can be quite insistent on the freelancer having business professional liability insurance. Freelance medical writers are also another vulnerable category where those who use their services prefer to have those with professional indemnity insurance than those without one.

Authors and article writers may also ideally have professional indemnity insurance, even though they are not catering to the needs of a specific client. Authors proclaim in the front page of a work of fiction that the book is not based on any real life character and that everything written there is a figment of imagination. But everybody is not satisfied with these claims and people often go to court with charges of libel and defamation against an author. Even where these charges have no merit at all, the cost of defending himself against these charges can be substantial for an author. Without business professional liability insurance, he may find it very difficult to cope with the demands of such a situation.

The insurance companies, which give business professional liability insurance, do not always compensate the claimants in the same way. In certain cases the complainant may be paid cash by way of compensation while in another case a damaged item may be replaced or repaired. The insurance company providing the professional indemnity insurance will decide on the method of settlement based on the merits of each case.

If you require Professional Indemnity Insurance Cover or require assistance in finding Professional Indemnity Insurance for Professionals or Specialists or you need to find a business specialist to assist you Business Liability Insurance for Management Consultants please do visit our site. Our service is FREE for all business owners, as well as for consultants, advisers, freelancers, contractors, agents etc.

John Corr is an eBusiness advisor based in NE UK and writes on Business Indemnity and Business Insurance for Professionals