What Kinds of Business Insurance Do Website Designers Need?

As a website designer, you provide an important service by creating gorgeous websites that help your clients succeed. When you work in an independent setup, you may feel as though you won’t run into any risks on the job.

But owning your own business is a risk in itself. You want to make sure that you do everything you can to protect your livelihood.

This is where business insurance comes into play.

Even if you have years of experience, you may not have figured out what types of policies you should buy (and which ones you shouldn’t).

So, here is our comprehensive guide to help you figure out what kinds of business insurance for web designers you need.

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Why Do Website Designers Need Business Insurance?

Running your own business is a huge undertaking, and you don’t want all your hard work to go to waste. No matter how well you are doing, you want to make sure all of your business income, assets, and people are protected.

Business insurance comes in handy during unexpected events. These can be anything from equipment malfunctions to disputes with clients.

You don’t want to pay for legal fees out of pocket or front the cost of new equipment. Business insurance can pay for a chunk of incidents like this and keep you covered despite what happens.

Protect Your Work

Working in design is a creative and fulfilling field. But it can also be easy for people to steal your intellectual property if it isn’t protected properly or insured.

If you work in website design, you will have different agreements with clients on how they can use your designs.

Also, get copyright and licensing agreements with your clients when doing website design work. You want to make sure you do work for great clients and are properly credited for that work.

Get Paid

When it comes to creative work, many people tend to make verbal agreements. Having verbal agreements can mean prices agreed upon can fall through the cracks. Some clients may also feel like they won’t have to pay you if they end up not liking your website design work.

You have to make sure you get paid for working in website design.

Having business insurance can help you front the bills if you end up having to sue a client for lack of payment for your services.

Protect Your Work Equipment

If you have a web design business, one thing is certain: you are working on a computer. And you probably aren’t working on just any computer. It has to have great graphics and flow with your creativity — and these aren’t cheap.

If something happens to your equipment, it can result in a lengthy business interruption. If your equipment is damaged or stolen, your business insurance can cover the cost of new equipment.

Are You Working Alone or Working with Others?

Many freelance gigs have flexible teams. You might work by yourself, or find you’re hiring others to help you get the job done.

Either way, here are the types of business insurance you’ll need if you work alone or with a team.

Working Alone

Web designers can work as freelancers on their own which will affect the type of business insurance you need.

If so, you can get more basic business insurance that will just cover your independent business and equipment.

Look into liability insurance policies.

These tend to cover the basics for people who offer expert services in their field to paying clients.

Working with Others

If you decide — or already have decided — to rent a space and hire other designers to work with you on your projects, this will affect the types of business insurance you will need.

Having a workspace or employees will mean you need more policies with different types of coverage.

If you run a website design business with employees, you’ll need to have insurance to cover anything that may happen to your employees, not just yourself. This can be anything from someone breaking company equipment to getting injured on the job.

While web design isn’t an inherently dangerous job, a slip and fall in the office is something you’ll want to have covered by insurance.

Types of Business Insurance for Independent Website Designers

Unfortunately, finding the right business insurance isn’t always simple. Here are some of the different kinds of business insurance you may need as an independent website designer.

General Liability Insurance

No matter what type of business you’re running, you’ll want to get general liability insurance. This baseline web designer insurance will protect you and your company against common occurrences.

General liability insurance will cover events like:

• Client Injuries
• Equipment damage
• Legal defense

While it isn’t too common for clients of website designers to get injured on the job, you’ll want your business to be protected in case of an accident.

A common accident that could occur is if a client visits your office and trips over a piece of equipment. They could then sue you for the medical costs. General liability insurance can help you cover these costs.

Your general liability insurance would also cover you if you visit a client’s office and accidentally spill coffee on their equipment. Let’s face it: accidents happen! Even a simple incident can add up quickly, and general liability insurance can help cover those costs.

Professional Liability Insurance

One of the more common occurrences that may come up as a website designer is an unhappy client.

We’re sure you’re great at your job.

Still, customers that don’t understand design well enough may not always like your work. In these cases, professional liability insurance will keep you protected.

This type of insurance will protect you in the following instances:

• Accidentally giving the client poor advice or a recommendation that doesn’t pan out
• Missing your client’s deadlines due to reasons beyond your control
• Client suing you for a misunderstanding on their part
• Copyright infringement of your work

As an independent contractor, professional liability insurance for website designers will be worth your investment. You don’t want to end up fronting legal costs if you don’t have to.

This type of plan is also sometimes known as errors and omissions insurance. You may see this pop-up as a website designer as most policies covering tech companies or data tend to use errors and omissions instead of professional liability.

But overall, making sure you cover yourself from an unhappy client is crucial when running a website design business.

Cyber Liability Insurance

As a website designer, you will most likely be working with data daily.

When working with your client’s data, it must be protected. You don’t want their new product to leak or their contacts to be compromised. But sometimes, data breaches or cyberattacks happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Whether you get hacked or your computer gets a virus, it’s usually out of your control. This is where cyber liability insurance comes in.

Cyber liability insurance will protect you if your:

• customer’s data has been breached.
• own website designer data has been breached.

Data is becoming an important currency in the world, so make sure you do everything you can to keep it protected for your livelihood.

Home-Based Business Insurance

If you work from home or use your home as your office, you can get policies that cover it in the case of an emergency.

Having home-based business insurance means protecting your home as if it was your office.

If anything ever gets damaged, you will have insurance that can help you cover the cost of those incidents.

It also helps cover any medical expenses if you have clients or employees in your home who end up with an injury.

Home-based business insurance is an add-on policy you can get that further protects your business.

Read more: Who Needs Self-Employed Business Insurance?

Types of Business Insurance for Website Design Company Owners

You may have started your website design company on your own and since expanded into owning your own website design company. If so, you will need some different small business insurance policies.

Worker’s Compensation Insurance

Worker’s compensation insurance is crucial for anyone that employs people.

Even though there isn’t much risk in being a website designer, you want to make sure you’re protected if there are any work-related injuries.

Worker’s comp insurance saves you from having to pay your employee’s lost wages and out-of-pocket medical costs in the event of an accident.

So if you have any employees, you will want to have this insurance in case of a bodily injury.

Read more: 11 Things to Know About Self-Employed Worker’s Comp Insurance

Commercial Property Insurance

Commercial property insurance is necessary if you own a building for your website design company.

It will:

• help protect any business property that you work out of with your co-workers.
• cover your equipment and employees’ equipment in the case of an unlikely event like a fire, flood, or a break-in that causes property damage.

Business Owner’s Policy

One of the easiest ways to make sure you have all the insurance coverage you need as a small business is to go with a business owner’s policy.

A business owner’s policy, or a BOP, combines everything you would need in your general liability and commercial property insurance policy.

Most insurance providers will have some sort of BOP that you can look into. While you may want to add on other policies for extra protection for your intellectual property or data, a BOP is a great baseline if you own your website design company.

What to Look for in Business Insurance (And What to Avoid)

When looking for business insurance for website designers, you want to make sure you’re getting a policy that works with your unique needs.

You may need more coverage than others if you work with large brands with higher security concerns. Or you may need small policies that just cover you and your laptop. Either way, insurance policies for jobs like website design tend to be pretty affordable.

Website designers in the United States pay about $400-$700 a year for general liability insurance. This comes to about $28 per month.

Professional liability or E&O insurance for website designers hovers around $61 per month.

When you’re looking for your first insurance policy, going with a BOP bundle may be the way to go for you. It encapsulates everything you’ll need while starting and is usually cheaper than having multiple plans.

As you shop, take particular notes of the following:

Look for Flexibility

If you believe your business is going to grow, look for insurance companies that can grow with you. For instance, you may decide to buy more equipment and need to get more coverage at some point, so the insurance quote you receive should be able to cover everything you need as your business develops.

As a website designer, you can keep your business small, work by yourself, and never need to grow your policy. But if you start working on bigger projects and need some extra hands, you want to make sure you have the option to effortlessly expand your coverage.

Try to find an insurance agent that understands your needs. The better your relationship with a licensed agent, the more flexibility you have.

Avoid Overspending

Every website designer will have different requirements when it comes to their insurance.

Don’t end up with a policy that has you paying for way more than you need, especially when it comes to bundles and add-ons.

Watch your insurance costs and look at what you need to keep your business protected. Always request a free quote to fully understand any potential premiums and avoid significant financial loss to your bottom line.

Conclusion

Website design companies are unique, making your business insurance needs a bit more specialized. You want to make sure that your data, equipment, and business are protected no matter what.

This is why obtaining insurance for website designers is essential. Make sure that you are protecting yourself with great benefits for gig workers, and your company with comprehensive business insurance.