Insurance, and Whose It Is
Most cover in this position exists only because you bought it, and what a client requires you to hold is not the same as what would protect you.
Is any of a fortnight off ill paid?
The law where you areAm I covered if I am hurt on their site?
The law where you areWhat happens if I am away for three months?
The law where you areWill the work still be there when I come back?
Four questions a person in this position actually asks. One of them has no answer anybody can give in advance, and nothing here fills a blank with a guess. Most people read this section for the first time in the week they need it.
What one person found they were covered for, and what using any of it would have required
Harm caused to a client by a mistake in your work
Only if they agreeHow you would use it: Professional cover appropriate to your trade, taken out before the work, with the limit checked against what a client could lose
Injury to somebody else, or damage to their property
Only if they agreeHow you would use it: Public liability cover, which several clients require anyway and will ask to see
Your own income while you cannot work at all
Only if they agreeHow you would use it: Income protection of some kind, which is arranged in good health and not afterwards
Being injured on a client's premises
Depends where you areHow you would use it: Establish before starting whose policy responds, in writing, because the answer is rarely obvious and never obvious afterwards
Equipment of yours that is lost, stolen or broken
Only if they agreeHow you would use it: A policy that covers it away from home, which ordinary household cover frequently does not
The client's own insurance extending to you
Not in this positionSix items, and five of them exist only if you arranged them yourself. A right you cannot use is not a protection, and this sign will not print one without saying how you would use it. One person's own arrangement; what any category carries differs by jurisdiction.
Cover in this position generally exists only because you arranged it. What a client requires you to hold and what would actually protect you are different lists, and the overlap is smaller than people assume.
The situation in “Insurance, and Whose It Is” shows why ordinary availability data cannot explain illness, leave or a protected absence on its own. If a team evaluates visit the appropriate Monitask landing page for employee monitoring data security, the surrounding policy should let people correct records and add context before managers interpret a gap as a performance issue.
This article is about telling the two apart before anything happens.
Readers comparing the situation in “Insurance, and Whose It Is” can also consult Gallup workplace research. Use it as a separate perspective, then check the contract and rules that apply where the work is performed.
The two reasons to hold cover
Because somebody requires it, or because you would be ruined without it. Those produce different policies and different limits.
A client requiring evidence of cover is protecting themselves. Meeting their requirement at the minimum level satisfies them and may leave you badly exposed.
The kinds that recur across trades
Names differ by market; the shapes are recognisable:
- Cover for harm caused by a mistake in your professional work.
- Cover for injury to others or damage to their property.
- Cover for your own equipment, away from home.
- Cover for your income if you cannot work at all.
- Whatever is compulsory in your trade or jurisdiction.
Income cover is the one people leave out, and it is the only item on that list addressed to the situation this whole section describes.
The question to ask an insurer
Not whether you are covered. Ask what is excluded, and ask for the list.
Exclusions are where policies actually live, and reading the list before buying is the difference between cover you understand and cover you assume.
Limits, and what a client could lose
A policy limit should relate to what could plausibly go wrong in the work you do, not to the smallest figure that satisfies a procurement form.
Working out what a client could lose through an error of yours is uncomfortable and takes an hour. It is the only way to choose a limit rather than accept one.
Evidence clients ask for
Routine, and worth having ready: a certificate showing the cover, the limit and the period.
Keep the current one somewhere you can send it in a minute. Requests for it arrive at the start of engagements, which is exactly when everything else is also happening.
Cover that lapses
A quiet failure. Policies renew annually, a renewal is missed in a busy month, and an engagement continues on the assumption that cover is in place.
Diary the renewal dates. A lapsed policy is worse than no policy, because you are working as though protected.
Whose policy responds on their site
Covered in the article on injury and worth repeating because it is the question people most regret not asking.
Ask before starting, in writing, and keep the reply. "Whose insurance responds if I am injured working here" is an ordinary question that any organisation running a site can answer.
Income protection, and why it is skipped
Because it is the most expensive, the least visible, and the one that pays out least often.
It is also the only thing on the list that addresses the situation this entire section describes. People who have been unable to work for three months are uniformly clear about this; people who have not are uniformly relaxed.
What it costs, honestly
Enough to notice, and the cost rises with age and with the risk of your trade. It belongs in the arithmetic as a line rather than as an afterthought.
Deciding not to carry it is a legitimate decision. Not having decided is the common position and it is the one worth changing.
Cover through a trade body
Frequently cheaper and occasionally better, because the terms were negotiated for the trade rather than for an individual.
Worth checking before buying retail, and worth checking again at renewal, because the comparison changes.
If you cannot afford it
A real situation and not a reason to stop reading. The ordinary response is to cover the risk that would end you and leave the rest: usually whatever is compulsory, plus the one thing specific to your trade that would be catastrophic.
Partial cover chosen deliberately is a different thing from no cover chosen by default.
Reviewing it once a year
What you do changes, what clients require changes, and limits that were adequate three years ago may not be.
Twenty minutes at renewal: has the work changed, has the worst plausible loss changed, and is anything on the exclusion list now relevant. Most people renew without reading anything, which is how cover quietly stops matching the work.
What stays uncertain
Whether a policy responds in your particular circumstances. Insurers decide that when a claim is made, against wording that is rarely plain, and the answer is not knowable in advance with certainty.
That uncertainty is why reading the exclusions matters and why "what is not covered" is the better question. It is also why the people who hold the fewest surprises are the ones who asked before buying rather than after claiming.