Insurance for Life Coaches

Why do Life Coaches need insurance?

Being a life coach means helping a variety of clients with unique needs and demands. You’re there to provide guidance and tips to put them on the right path to achieve their life goals, something which is anything but a walk in the park!

While you may have all the experience and knowledge to help create action plans assisting your clients to live their best life, the reality is things don’t always go to plan and unwanted challenges can happen when you least expect it.

As a small business owner, you may already have plans in place to help keep your business around for the long haul, and business insurance is one thing you should consider including in your plans. These are some examples^ of when business insurance can provide some much-needed protection to help safe-guard your life coaching business.

• A client may allege that the advice you gave them was inappropriate to their needs
• You may not deliver on your outcomes, timeframes and budget initially promised to your client
• Protecting things that help keep your business running like business assets with contents, building and portable equipment insurance
• The risk of valuable information like your customer files and data being subject to a data breach if a cyber-attack were to occur- that’s where Cyber Liability insurance could help.

Insurance for Life Coaches

Professional Indemnity insurance*

You’re a professional when it comes to giving specialised guidance on all thing’s life coaching to your clients. They seek out your skills and experience and put their trust in the advice that you give them. Having a strong and respected reputation with your clients and peers doesn’t happen overnight, and all it takes is an accident, mistake or alleged claim from a client to send it all crashing down.

Professional Indemnity protects you against losses claimed by a third party due to alleged or actual negligence in your professional services or advice. Subject to applicable limits, your Professional Indemnity insurance will meet the associated compensation payable to a third party together with your defence costs (which can include legal costs, investigator costs and expert fees).

What’s typically included?

Depending on the Professional Indemnity policy selected, your policy could cover:

• Payment of compensation as a result of a claim, including but not limited to Court awarded damages
• An award of legal costs against you
• Reasonable legal costs incurred in defending or responding to the claim
• Claim investigation costs
• Disciplinary proceeding costs

What is typically not covered?

• Intentional damage
• Contractual liabilities
• Professional fees
• Known claims and circumstances
• Fraud and dishonesty

Public Liability Insurance*

As a life coach you work closely with people every day and that’s why Public Liability insurance is an important type of business insurance to think about.

The flexibility of your profession means you may run a home-based office or maybe you’re out and about visiting your clients, regardless of your set-up, accidents can still happen and that’s where Public Liability insurance can help to provide protection from those unexpected challenges!

Public Liability insurance is designed to provide protection for you and your business in the event a customer, supplier or a member of the public brings a claim against you due to their being injured or sustaining property damage as a result of your negligent business activities.

What is typically included?

Compensation for:

• Personal injury suffered by a third party (e.g. a customer, supplier or member of the public)
• Damage to property owned by a third party due to your negligent business activities
• Legal and defence costs associated with a covered claim

What is typically not covered?

• Injuries to your employees
• Damage to your own property
• Costs of rectifying faulty workmanship
• Professional negligence
• Contractual liability
• Events occurring before or after the policy period

Business Insurance*

Take a moment to think about how much you rely on your business assets to help keep your business running. If you were without things like your office furniture, electronic devices like your phone and laptop could you imagine the drama it would cause?

Business Insurance is an insurance package designed to provide cover for your business contents, stock, tools and commercial premises when an insured event occurs (such as fire, storm, theft or even accidental damage). A Business Insurance package can also cover your portable equipment, glass and for loss of revenue due to business interruption in specified circumstances.  In addition, cover is available for public liability, tax audit, employment practices and statutory liability risks.

Here are a few types of cover to consider when looking at ways to protect your life coaching business:

Contents: Cover for loss of or damage to items such as business equipment, stock, plant and machinery, records and furniture belonging to you at the insured location.

Building: If you own the building from where you operate your business this Covers you for damage to your building due to fire and other perils listed within the policy wording.

Portable Equipment: Portable Equipment insurance (also known as General Property insurance) covers you for loss and damage to items of portable equipment associated with your business. These can include tools of trade and items of stock.

Tax Audit: If your accounts are audited by the Australian Tax Office, you may need to hire external accountants to assist in the process. Tax Audit Insurance covers a business for specified costs in responding to an official tax audit.

Cyber Liability*

Part of your responsibility as a life coach is to carefully manage your clients’ confidential files, data and valuable business information which may be stored online. With cyber criminals increasingly becoming more advanced in their attacks, it is important to have the right processes in place like Cyber Liability insurance to protect your business from online threats.

Cyber Liability insurance helps to protect you from claims and supports your profitability in the event of a cyber breach or attack.

Real life claim example^

The insured life coach had a complaint made against them to a regulator. The complaint alleged the life coach of unethical and unprofessional conduct and that they had entered into an improper relationship with the relative of a patient.

The life coach had Public Liability and Professional Indemnity insurance, and under their policy appointed lawyers to assist with responding to the complaint. These costs were met by the insurer.

The regulator decided the complaint did not need to have any further action taken, bringing the insureds attention to the Codes of Ethics and Practice regarding relationships with relatives of patients.

^ The provision of the claims examples are for illustrative purposes only and should not be seen as an indication as to how any potential claim will be assessed or accepted. Cover for a claim will depend on the specific circumstances around the loss and would be subject to the terms and conditions of the policy concerned. Coverage for claims on the policy will be determined by the insurer, not BizCover, and will depend on the specific facts and circumstances involved.

* The information provided on this page is general guide only and does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. This information should not be construed as any form of advice. Consider your own personal circumstances, objectives, financial situation, needs, Product Disclosure Statement (PDS), and full policy terms and conditions before making a decision. Product descriptions on this page are intended only as a guide to coverage terms and conditions, and should not be relied upon to determine policy coverage. Policy coverage is subject to the specific terms and conditions of each policy wording.

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