Web designer insurance

What Type of Web Designer Insurance Do I Need?

What Kind of Web Designer Insurance Do I Need?

You know APIs and HTTP, and we know policies and premiums. Together, we can create beautiful websites and protect businesses across the country. Want to take a peek into our world? Here’s what you need to know about the three types of policies available to web designers and what they can cover.

General Liability Insurance

If you’re looking for a solid insurance foundation that could cover a variety of scenarios, look no further than general liability insurance. This type of policy typically covers bodily injury, property damage to third-parties, and third-party accidents. For reference, “third-party” is insurance lingo for your clients or vendors.

Just because this is a generalized insurance doesn’t mean it can’t pack a serious punch. The average customer injury or damage claim — something that GL covers — is a whopping $30,000. If you happen to have that money sitting around, you’d have to pay for the accident out of pocket. If not, it would likely either have to come from your family’s finances or a loan.

What kind of accidents could come your way as a web developer, though? After all, some days, you have to remind yourself to peel your eyes off the screen every so often. Imagine a client visits your office to cover project details when they trip over a cord and drop their laptop which breaks.

On top of the damages for the broken equipment, your client could also sue you for the trouble they had to go through to work around their business setback. If you had general liability insurance, your policy could potentially offset those costs and preserve your finances.

So what does general liability insurance typically cover in your web design business? Here’s a recap:

• Third-party property damage
• Bodily injury (clients or vendors)
• Medical expenses
• Personal and advertising injury
• And more

General liability insurance usually does not cover:

• Personal property damage
• Professional services
• Employee injury and workers compensation
• Damage to your work
• Motor vehicles during business use
• Intentional injury or damage
• And more

Professional Liability Insurance

Perhaps you’ve heard of professional liability insurance for doctors, lawyers, and surgeons, but did you know that web designers can benefit from this coverage too? This type of policy protects your business against a negligence claim. A client could sue you for negligence and damages, even if you don’t agree with the claim. Professional liability insurance covers you if a client claims that you, your employees, or your business were negligent.

In your work, negligence could look like creating something that causes your customer to lose business. For example, you’re so eager to finally wrap up a long project that you don’t realize one of the images you designed could come off as explicit. The site goes live, and your client’s audience is upset. The incident harms the business’s reputation, and they lose money during their launch.

If you were the designer in this scenario, you could face damages and legal fees. Even if the court decided there was no negligence on your part, your lawyer would still expect a check. So businesses that have professional liability insurance could have their costs offset by their policy. Nobody plans on being sued, but coverage minimizes the impact of the “worst-case scenario.”

Let’s review the scenarios that professional liability insurance usually covers:

• Legal defense costs
• Omissions or alleged omissions
• Negligence or alleged negligence
• Claims and damages
• And more

Having professional liability insurance does not usually protect you from:

• Property damage
• Intentional acts and omissions
• Bodily injury
• Medical expenses
• And more

Workers Compensation Insurance

If you grow your web design business into an agency, you can take on more projects, clients, and employees. As your payroll upgrades from a party-of-one to a 2+ person shop, you’ll likely have more insurance needs.

Most states require you to carry workers compensation insurance if you have part-time or full-time employees. This type of insurance usually covers medical bills, lost wages, and legal costs associated with an employee who gets sick or hurt on the job.

Not only is protecting your employees the right thing to do, having workers comp insurance can be a smart financial decision. The average cost of a workers comp claim is $40,051, which means that the price of a single accident makes workers compensation insurance worth having.

Workers compensation insurance for web development firms may cover:

• Medical payments
• Lost wages
• Rehabilitation expenses
• Death benefits

Why Should You Get a Web Designer Insurance Policy?

I know what you’re thinking — I do most of my work sitting at the computer; why would I need insurance for that? While it’s true that working online may not have the same workplace dangers as a construction site, it doesn’t mean you’re immune to accidents.

Forty-three percent of small business owners polled reported being threatened with or involved in a civil lawsuit. While this isn’t the majority, the costs you could face in a lawsuit are usually enough to make you do a double-take.

The average costs small business owners are exposed to without insurance include:

• $30,000 for property damage or accident claims
• $50,000 for reputational harm claims (e.g., slander or libel)
• $20,000 for a client slip-and-fall case

Without insurance, you’d need to pay for damages to your client’s property out of pocket. If you face a lawsuit without insurance coverage, you can probably kiss your business savings goodbye. The toughest part, though, is that you don’t necessarily have to do something wrong to face these business challenges.

Since you’re advising clients and creating something for their business, a single disgruntled client could sue you for negligence. Whether you actually were negligent or not, you can expect to rack up legal fees.

We don’t bring up these scenarios to scare you. But to make a mistake is only human, so you shouldn’t dread what could be. Instead, you can take a step today to have peace of mind.

Having web developer insurance has its perks beyond protecting you on your “bad days.” Having a certificate of insurance (COI) could help you rent office space and build confidence with potential clients and employees.