Your Guide on How to Get Makeup Artist Insurance

There’s a lot to love about working as a makeup artist: meeting new people, the constant variety from one day to the next, and sharing your expertise with clients.

Whether you’re a freelancer on your own, or you have a team of employees working for you, owning a business in the beauty industry is a daily challenge – sometimes it can feel almost daunting.

Tasks such as marketing yourself, building an annual budget, or expanding your business can put you in unfamiliar (maybe even stressful) territory.

Getting business insurance might be on that list of stressors, too. But it doesn’t have to be. You’ve invested in learning and perfecting your craft, so let’s look at one of the easiest ways to protect that investment: Makeup artist insurance.

What Makeup Artist Insurance Policies Should You Get?

1. Professional Liability Insurance: Creating Peace of Mind for Makeup Artists

One of the most common coverages makeup artists opt for is professional liability insurance. When you purchase a professional liability policy, you’re covering your business against claims of negligence from clients or other third parties. What does that mean exactly?

Well, imagine that you’re working with a new client, doing a run-through for her upcoming wedding. She seems thrilled, and you think it went great, until you get an angry call from the client the next day.

She says she developed an allergic reaction to the makeup you applied, and she’s covered in red blotches – so much so that she had to miss work and go to the doctor. That’s when you realize you forgot to ask her if she’s allergic to anything.

It’s a mess. The angry client could file a lawsuit claiming you were negligent, and she could be asking for lost wages and medical costs. Even if she’s mistaken, a court case like this can get very expensive, very fast.

For a small business owner – especially someone just starting out – it can spell disaster.

Without insurance, you might be responsible for covering those costs. That’s when professional liability insurance for makeup artists helps.

When your business has professional liability insurance – also known as errors and omissions, or E&O coverage – you have insurance experts backing you and your business in case a claim of negligence is filed.

Depending on your type of policy, it can also help protect you from:

• Breach of contract: A client claims you didn’t fulfill the work you were contracted to do.
• Copyright infringement: For example, you share copyrighted images in your website ads without realizing it, and the owner of the images sues for damages.
• Misrepresentation: In the basic sense, this is when a client says you promised something that wasn’t true and she suffers damage as a result (which can happen even if you didn’t know you were sharing false information).
• Invasion of privacy: Say you’ve been the makeup artist for a celebrity, and there’s a falling out – so you take to social media to spill the beans on your famous former client. That’s an invasion of privacy, and a fast way to end up in court.

With all the work you put in, you owe it to yourself to protect the career you’ve built. Professional liability coverage can give you peace of mind so you can focus on your craft.

2. Contents Coverage Insurance: Specialized Tools, Specialized Protection

As a makeup artist, your tools and equipment are your lifeblood. And those tools of the trade are not cheap. Aside from the makeup itself – no small expense – professional equipment such as lighting, mirrors, chairs, and even your makeup case can be pricey, especially if you’re just launching your business.

If you’re on location and your kit is damaged or stolen, you will have to replace those missing tools and makeup supplies ASAP, which can blow a huge hole in your budget. To add insult to injury, you also might be losing out on income until you get everything replaced.

It’s an important lesson for any business owner: If you’re going to invest in good equipment, make sure it’s protected.

Contents coverage can help. Whether it’s due to theft or damage, contents coverage can offset the cost of replacing the items you rely on to do your job.

3. General Liability Insurance: A Makeup Artist’s Best Friend

If you’re a makeup artist who specializes in weddings, television, theater, photo shoots, or fashion events, you spend a lot of hours on location. Depending on the venue, you may find yourself working in tight, temporary quarters, with a lot of activity going on around you. In these unfamiliar settings, no matter how careful you are, accidents can happen.

For example: You’ve been hired to work a small runway show at a local boutique, and you’re set up in a corner of the dressing area to apply makeup on the models.

Just as you’re opening a pot of lip stain, someone bumps you from behind, you trip, and you spread a bright coral smear across your model’s expensive designer dress.

The dress is ruined.

It’s the last thing you need – and without makeup artist insurance, the costs could come straight out of your pocket.

That’s the “beauty” of general liability insurance. Sometimes called commercial general liability, or CGL, it helps protect you from unexpected costs if you damage something – whether it belongs to you or someone else.

Makeup Artist Insurance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated!

You know knowledge is power – and now you have the power to make an informed decision about insuring your business as a makeup artist. To start out, keep it simple and go with a couple of key coverages.

Makeup artists usually opt for a professional liability policy and contents coverage. General liability is a good third option.

You can find and compare quotes for makeup artist insurance at Simply Business. We specialize in makeup artist insurance - as well as policies for beauticians and cosmetologists - so you can get personalized coverage at affordable prices.

All you have to do is provide a few details about you and your business — we’ll take care of the rest with our makeup artist insurance policies.