If you’re operating as a self-employed consultant, it’s important to protect yourself with the right business insurance.
As a consultant you fill a vital role in providing advice and guidance to others, but make sure you don’t forget about taking on some good advice for yourself!
That’s where we come in. At PATCH our mission is to ensure all small business owners are properly protected, and not overpaying for that protection.
Our team of experienced insurance brokers can help with you advice, recommendations and of course quotes on your business insurance needs.
To get started please call us on 1800 811 888 or hit the button below.
For more information about consultant’s insurance please check out our guide below.
What insurance does a consultant need?
Depending on the type of consulting work you are doing, there are four main types of business insurance to consider:
- Professional Indemnity Insurance
- Public Liability Insurance
- Personal Accident Insurance
- General Property Insurance
We’ll cover each of these in more detail, but briefly this is what each of them is protecting:
Professional Indemnity – Covers you in the event that you provide negligent advice of breach your professional duties.
Public Liability – Covers you in the event that your business activities result in personal injury or property damage to a third party.
Personal Accident – Covers your income in the event that you’re unable to work due to injury or illness.
General Property – Covers the equipment that you use to run your business.
There are other forms of business insurance for consultants to consider, and often this will depend on the size of your business and whether or not you employ staff or have your own premises.
But for most consultants, and especially those working on their own, these will be the four main ones to consider.
Types of consultants
Consultants can work across a huge variety of industries.
We can help with consultants insurance for most industries, but below we’ve listed some of the more common ones we can assist with.
- Accounting
- Marketing
- Communications
- Management
- Technology
- Security
- Cyber
- Public Relations
- Human Resources
- Education
Whatever types of consulting work you are undertaking, the team at PATCH can assist.
Professional Indemnity Insurance
As a consultant one of your largest risks is that you provide advice or recommendations that result in your client suffering a loss.
If your advice is found to be negligent, you could be financially responsible for the losses of your client.
It’s a similar story if you have provided a report that is found to contain inaccurate information, resulting in a loss to your client.
This is where your professional indemnity insurance can respond.
Your policy will not only cover costs where you are found to be liable, but will also cover your legal expenses during the course of the claim.
It may be found that you weren’t responsible for the loss at all, but if it costs you $50,000 in legal fees that you’re unable to recover from your client, you’re still out of pocket without insurance.
Professional indemnity insurance is vital for any consultant who is providing advice, making recommendations or creating reports for a fee.
The cost of professional indemnity insurance will depend on the type of consulting work you are doing, as well as the size of your consulting business.
Public Liability Insurance
Consulting doesn’t typically involve the type of work that could result in property damage or personal injury to a third party, which is what public liability covers.
However there is still an exposure, especially if you have clients coming to your premises.
Public liability insurance is designed to protect your business in the event that you cause property damage or personal injury to a third party.
Whilst property damage is less likely, personal injury is always a possibility if you have clients or any other members of the public coming into your office – even if it’s a home office.
If a client slips on your wet driveway of falls down your stairs, you may be found liable to costs involved in their injury and recovery.
Even if you never have clients or other third parties visiting your premises, public liability insurance is a strongly recommended for any business.
The good news is that consultants are typically considered to be very low risk when it comes to public liability insurance, which means the policy is quite cheap.
Personal Accident Insurance
As a consultant you rely heavily on your own ability to think and act.
Whilst it’s not physical work like a tradie, where you have to be on site, you still need to be able to function!
Personal accident insurance can cover a large percentage of your income whilst you’re unable to work due to injury, with the option to include illness.
Many consultants can keep working through a mild illness or even a broken leg if working from home, but you might not always be so lucky.
A more serious illness might leave you without the mental capacity or ability to work property, and a more serious injury could result in a lengthy hospital stay with no ability to work.
If you have a team of consultants working for you and bringing in revenue this might not be of concern to you, but if you’re working on your own, you ability to earn an income is vital.
Due to the non-physical nature of most consulting work, you’ll generally find that personal accident insurance for consultants is on the cheaper side compared to other more physical occupations.
General Property Insurance
One of great things about starting and running a consulting business – especially as a sole trader – is that the business is typically very capital light.
You don’t need to hold thousands of dollars’ worth of stock or invest in plant and machinery.
Sometimes your ‘tools of trade’ can simply be your laptop and mobile phone!
Of course there are some exceptions where you will need to invest in other equipment, and it’s important to protect that equipment within insurance.
General property insurance can insure your equipment both at home and whilst out on the road.
The policy can respond in the event that your gear is damaged or lost due to fire or a vehicle collision, as well as theft provided that forced entry was required.
If your vehicle is broken into and your laptop, phone and other equipment is stolen, you’ll be able to claim on your general property insurance.
Other forms of consultants insurance
Whilst the four types of consultants insurance listed above will cover most situations for a typical consulting business, there may be others to consider.
If your consulting business has grown to the point where you’re operating from your own office premises you will need to consider property insurance.
For those who have purchased office space you may need to insure the physical building, depending upon whether it’s part of a strata complex or not.
Regardless of whether you’re buying or renting space, you’ll also need to insure your contents. This isn’t just your desks and computers, but also the entire fitout of your premises.
As your staff numbers grow you may want to consider management liability insurance and legal expenses insurance.
All of these types of insurance and more can be dealt with by your PATCH insurance broker.
Advice & Quotes
Here at PATCH our mission is to ensure that all business owners can protect their business.
Or as we like to say, protect your patch!
Our team of qualified and experienced insurance brokers deal exclusively with business insurance, from sole-trader startups through to large nation-wide companies.
We understand the risks that consultants and consulting businesses face, and we’re here to help answer your questions, provide recommendations and find you the best deals on your insurance.
To get started please call us on 1800 811 888 to speak with one of our friendly brokers, or hit the button below to complete our online quote request.
