Interior Design Business Insurance: Quotes From $5

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Businesses that deal with people’s homes such as  electricians, architects, lawn mowers, plumbers, gas engineers, real estate agents, pool cleaners, construction workers, maids and house cleaners  and roofers typically have to deal with difficult clientele that won’t hesitate to sue them. It makes sense that people are protective of their homes, but businesses like these have to take every precaution they can to protect themselves.

This is also the case for interior design firms that work on people’s homes. If you want to protect your interior design business, you’ll need a sufficient degree of business insurance for interior designers. Over the course of this guide, we’re going to cover everything you need to know about interior design insurance.

Liability Insurance for Interior Designers

Liability insurance for interior designers is one of the more popular forms of business insurance that you’ll come across due to the wider range of circumstances in which it covers your business. While businesses may invest in other forms of insurance, interior design liability insurance coverage will make up for the vast majority of issues that can end a business (or just cause it some financial loss).

When you get sued by someone as an interior designer, you’ll often be covered by interior designer liability insurance, though you’ll need to be sued for either property damage or bodily injury for the policy to payout. However, while we normally refer to general liability insurance when discussing it, one thing that you’ll have to keep in mind is that there are various forms of liability coverage.

The first form of liability coverage that you’re likely to come across other than general liability is public liability insurance . Public liability insurance for interior designers, as the name suggests, applies to members of the public who are on the premises of your business. Members of the public include people who supply you, your customers, and passers-by.

However, it is more recommended to opt for general liability insurance, which is the broader coverage option available. General liability insurance applies to a wider range of risks, and also includes public liability coverage for damage caused to members of the public.

Professional Indemnity Insurance for Interior Designers

Professional indemnity insurance for interior designers is sometimes referred to as the third form of liability coverage. It is also known as professional liability insurance. This kind of interior decorator insurance coverage applies when you make a mistake while performing your interior design job or delivering the service.

When people hire you as an interior designer, they expect a certain level of service for the money they’re paying you. Compared to other industries, people pay you a lot more money for your services and what you do will permanently impact how their home looks.

If you make an egregious error while working as an interior decorator, then you may be held liable for your mistakes. In such a case, professional indemnity insurance for interior decorators and designers will cover you for damages that people charge you for because of mistakes that you made when you were coming up with a design for their homes.

Other Business Insurance Policies Interior Designers Need 

Professional liability, general liability, and public liability insurance aren’t the only policies you need for comprehensive protection. There are other useful business insurance policies to get if you’re willing to invest more in premiums, such as:

• Commercial property insurance

• Commercial auto insurance

• Workers compensation insurance

• Cyber liability insurance

• Employer’s liability insurance

Interior Designer Commercial Property Insurance 

Do you use an owned commercial space? We recommend you insure that with commercial property insurance. 

Why do you need to insure your business’s space with commercial property insurance anyway? There are two reasons; First, your commercial space might be destroyed by fire or extreme weather. It’s also possible for fire, extreme weather, theft, and vandalism to damage it.

When your commercial space is damaged or destroyed, you’ll have to spend on reconstruction or repair. Having a commercial space built once again or getting damaged structures repaired is very costly. 

Commercial property insurance sees to it that reconstructing or repairing your commercial space will not cost anything at all or be very cheap. Commercial property insurance will provide reimbursement equal to the value of your destroyed commercial space. On the flip side, if the commercial space needs to be repaired, then commercial property insurance will provide money equal to the estimated repair costs. 

How about the important documents in the commercial space such as financial records and other valuable documents? Does commercial property insurance cover this? Yes but only if you decide to add stocks and contents coverage. 

Stocks and contents coverage will reimburse your losses if valuable materials in your commercial space are destroyed or damaged by fire, vandalism, theft, extreme weather, and other covered perils. 

How about the tools and equipment you’re using for work? Stocks and contents coverage doesn’t cover those, and you need to add business equipment coverage to commercial property insurance. Business equipment coverage reimburses your losses if work tools and equipment got damaged by fire, vandalism, extreme weather, and other covered perils.

Does Commercial Property Insurance Cover Floods and Earthquakes?

Commercial property insurance doesn’t cover floods and earthquakes. To cover your commercial space against floods, you need to get a tailored flood insurance. In the same way, you need to get tailored earthquake insurance to protect your commercial space against earthquakes. 

Commercial Auto Insurance

As an interior designer, you’re certainly using your personal car for work-related purposes - meeting clients, going to government offices to get permits, and transporting materials or work tools. 

Your personal car insurance will still provide protection even if you’re using a vehicle for work-related purposes. However, this comes at an additional cost. And so, if you don’t want to spend a lot of money on an insurance policy that doesn’t provide comprehensive protection for your commercial car, get commercial auto insurance instead. 

Commercial auto insurance offers three types of protection:

• Auto liability coverage

• Physical damage coverage

• Medical payments

You might cause an accident while on the way to meet a client. Of course,  you’ll need to pay if people get hurt and have their property damaged. Auto liability insurance sees to it that paying won’t make you lose money. Particularly, this one works by taking care of expenses for the treatment of injured third parties and reimbursements to damaged property.  And if things get ugly and taken to court, auto liability coverage will shoulder attorney fees, other legal costs, and settlements. 

The vehicle you’re using for work might get damaged. You’ll spend money on repairing or replacing parts. Commercial auto insurance’s physical damage coverage sees to it that you don’t incur losses when doing so. 

There are two types of physical damage coverage; collision and comprehensive. Collision insurance is what most drivers primarily get aside from auto liability coverage. This coverage takes care of parts repair or replacement expenses if the vehicle you’re using to meet clients and transport materials is damaged because of crashing with another car or object on the road. 

The second type, comprehensive physical damage coverage, shoulders vehicle parts replacement or repair if damage is caused by the following:

• Fire

• Vandalism

• Theft

• Lightning

• Ramming a deer or any other animal

• Other named perils

Commercial auto insurance doesn’t only insure the vehicle but you as well. Medical payments coverage or MedPay covers the cost of emergency treatment if you get injured after causing a vehicular accident or getting involved in a vehicular accident. 

What is Commercial Fleet Insurance?

Big interior design firms own multiple vehicles. While it’s possible to insure multiple vehicles using separate commercial auto insurance policies, this method isn’t cost-effective. 

Commercial fleet insurance offers the best coverage for multiple vehicles. This one is a specialized form of commercial auto insurance. Through commercial fleet insurance, one or more vehicles can be insured on one roof. This makes it easier for the policyholder to pay for premiums and save money. 

Workers Compensation Insurance

Your assistants or any other employees - if there are any - might suffer from a work-related injury such as carpal tunnel syndrome, and other musculoskeletal injuries.  It’s your obligation to look after injured employees as the employer. And so, you’ll need to spend some money on the injured employee’s treatment and unemployment allowance.

To avoid using your own money, consider getting workers compensation insurance. Workers compensation insurance kicks in if an employee becomes sick or injured because of work. This will take care of the employee’s treatment, hospitalization, rehabilitation, and doctor visits. Moreover, if the employee needs to take a leave, workers compensation insurance will provide an allowance. Workers comp will even provide death benefits if ever the employee dies because of a work-related injury. 

Employer’s Liability Insurance

Your interior design assistants and other employees might file a lawsuit after experiencing a work-related injury. And to ensure that you don’t incur losses in such a situation, consider getting employer’s liability insurance. Employer’s liability insurance sets to work the moment an injured employee sues you for negligence. Specifically, it will help pay attorney fees, other legal costs, and settlements. 

Cyber Liability Insurance

Cyber liability insurance covers costs associated with a data breach. You need to purchase this if you own a website or any other platform that collects and stores sensitive information from clients such as credit card numbers, phone numbers, addresses, and many more. The job of cyber liability insurance is to shoulder defense costs and compensatory payments if a data breach happens and affected parties file a lawsuit against your business. 

Business Owner’s Policy for Interior Designers

A business owner’s policy combines general liability and commercial property insurance into one comprehensive insurance product that can be added with either workers comp or commercial auto insurance. 

Getting a business owner’s policy is advantageous. First and foremost, it's cheaper than buying general liability and commercial property insurance separately. Second, it’s designed to provide comprehensive protection against the most common business hazards. Third and last,  as we emphasized earlier, it can be added with additional insurance policies for more protection. 

Is there a more comprehensive insurance plan than a business owner’s policy? Yes, there is. Go for a custom insurance plan if you think that a BOP isn’t enough for your interior design business. You can add insurance policies of your choice in a custom plan. A custom plan provides the most tailored protection against the risks you face as an interior designer. 

Interior Designer Insurance Requirements

Interior designers like you don’t need to follow insurance requirements mandated by state authorities. But still, some projects might require you to get specific insurance coverage. For example, it’s possible for you to encounter clients that will ask you to get a general liability coverage having $1 million per bodily injury coverage and $100,000 per property damage coverage. 

Another thing, you can’t register your business's vehicle without purchasing commercial auto insurance that has at least $15,000 - $50,000 auto liability coverage. 

Finally, aside from insurance, you mi ght also need to get a $100,000 surety bond. Many clients will ask you to get this. Why? A surety bond sees to it that you can reimburse the losses of clients if you fail to follow your end of the deal. 

Interior Designer Insurance Cost

Interior design insurance cost depends on a much wider range of factors than first-time buyers may assume. Before going out and wasting your time and effort on getting a quote when you may not be able to afford a certain policy, it’s a great idea to know how much you can expect to spend.

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To determine how much is business insurance for interior designers going to cost you, you’ll need to account for a range of factors like the size of your business. In fact, the size of your interior design business will be the single largest factor that will impact the cost of your insurance.

This makes sense when you consider that a larger interior design company will have more clients. The more clients that you have, the higher the chance that you will end up making a mistake that may end up in one of your clients filing a lawsuit against you, which increases the risk of your insurance carrier.

Along with that, you’ll also need to account for the history of your interior design business. If you run a business that has a history of making mistakes and having to file claims, then insurance companies will see you as a larger risk than other potential clients and they’ll charge you more for coverage.

That said, the average interior designer insurance cost is about $39 per month or $468 per year for a $1m general liability interior design business insurance policy. Below is a breakdown of interior designer insurance cost for different coverage types:

Here's a breakdown of interior designer insurance cost for $1 million general liability policy for small-medium interior design business insurance from some of the best interior designers insurance companies: